



MONTEREY 

— ^— ' Cradle of — 

California's Romance 



FACTS OF HEPv BIRTH AND 
GROWTH FROM HISTORIES, 
PUBLIC AND CHURCH PvECORDS 
AND STORIES OF PEOPLE YET 
LIVING 



MONTEREY 

Cradle of 

California s Romance 

THE STORY OF A LOST PORT THAT WAS FOUND AGAIN 
AND A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE. 



GRACE MacFARLAND 



Copyright 

1914 

Grace MacFarland 




1914 



Piess of 

Weybret-Lee Co. 

Monlerey 



r^6f 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 
Episode 1. EARLIEST EXPLORATIONS 7 

Episode 2. CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 8 

San Diego Founded 9 

Monterey Rediscovered 10 

San Carlos del Carmelo 13 

A Pioneer Capital 14 

Death of Padre Serra 15 

First Foreign Visitor 18 

A Day with the Neophytes 19 

Society in Spanish Monterey 22 

Fears of Foreign Aggression 26 

Incipient Insurrections 28 

Episodes. MEXICAN MONTEREY 31 

First Footholds of Americans 31 

Republic of Mexico 31 

Despoliation of Missions 32 

Americans in Politics 32 

Last Mexican Governor. .,. 36 

Conciliating California ....t/. 37 

European Colonizers 37 

Bear Flag X ■ a. ■ ■ • ,mi. 38 

DEC 15 1914 ^C'A:i93:j..9 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, continued 

Episode 4. CONQUEST OF CAEIFORNIA 40 

\0 Law and Order a la American 43 

\ Creation of California Literature 46 

■ Washtub Mail 47 

First Jury Trial 48 

California Christmas 49 

Introduction of Lumber and Brick 57 

Custom House Robbery 58 

Carmelo 58 

Struggle for Statehood 62 

American Ayuntamientos 65 

Episodes. AMERICAN MONTEREY 67 

Ambitious Ayuntamientos 67 

A Mecca of Artists 68 

Ruins of San Carlos 70 

Sleepy Hollow of the Pacific 71 

Artists Again 73 

An Abandoned Mission 76 

Exhuming Body of Junipero Serra 77 

Modernizing Monterey 79 

Pacific Grove 85 

Del Monte 86 

A C'ity of the Soul 87 



'DEDICATION 
To my Mother, through whose corxfidence 
I have k^pl up courage even when things 
went wrong, this hook '* dedicated with 
the prayer that it may prove worthy of 
her faith 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 

Visitors to Monterey are greeted by many signs marking places of historic interest. There 
has never been any means of answering their eager inquiries about the nature of t!iat interest. 

Three years ago, in his Graduate Course on Californian Literature at tlie University of Cali- 
fornia, Professor Wm. D. Amies suggested the need of a book to answer such inquiries accu- 
rately, entertainingly and inexpensively. 

The pages which follow are the author's attempt to write that book. Just how much is due 
to others, the next lines will make clear. 

First: Several librarians. es])ecially Miss Garroute of the State Library, greatly facilitated 
the work by furnishing printed material in a selected form. 

Second: Those who were familiar with details of life in the old Capital made possible the 
picture of Old Monterey. 

Third: The busy men who read the original manuscript, by their helpful criticisms, enabled 
the author to smooth away at least part of the rough places which all too often cause the reader 
to stumble on his way to the last page. 

Those who have given most help are: Rev. S. H. Willey and his son, W. A. Willey, Mr. 
Deakin, of Berkeley; Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hitchcock. Sr., Mr. F. Devendorff, of Carniel ; Dr. 
E. K. Abbott, Mr. Tom Allan and his daughter, Mrs. Dana; Mr. Arnold. Miss Bonifacio, Mrs. 
C. Field, Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Johnson, Mr. C. Machado, Rev. Father Mestres, Mr. ,1. K. 
Oliver, Mr. Wm. Sandholdt, Jr., Mr. C. Williams, of Monterey; Mr. Frank Abbe, Mr. Mort 
Regan, Miss I\L Solas, San Juan Bautista ; Judge Peter J. Shields, of Sacramento; Mr. Frank H. 
Powers and Chas. B. Turrill, of San Francisco; Mr. Harrj' A. Greene, of New Monterey, and 
Mr. H. R. Warner, of Hotel Del Monte. 



EARLIEST EXPLORATIONS 

THE best selling novel in Spain in 1510 was the "Sergas of Esplandian." The scene of its 
plot was an island of California "on the right hand of the Indies," peopled by Amazons 
and abounding in fabulous riches. 

The Spaniards had found such great wealth in Mexico and South America that they readily 
credited the fictions of the "Sergas." Accordingly, June 27, 1512, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a 
native of Portugal, but a Spanish citizen, left Natividad, Mexico, with two ships and sailed up the 
coast in search of California's fabled riches. 

He found none, but mentioned, in his diary, that in 37° latitude he came upon a little 
ensenada (bay), the shores of wliieh were covered with pines. 

After sixty years, one of the King's generals, who had been given the title Vicomte de 
Monterey and a large grant of land in Mexico, obtained a royal decree authorizing him to "explore 
and take possession of California." 

He immediately subsidized an expedition and put his most trusted captain, Vizcaino, in 
charge. Three barefooted Carmelite friars accompanied them, seeking riches, too, not of heathen 
gold to steal but of heathen souls to save. 

Vizcaino kept looking for Cabrillo's pine-clad ensenada. December 16, l602, he eame upon 
it. One siiip sped back to Acapulco, Mexico, to report progress. Meanwhile Vizcaino landed 
and, standing under an oak, took possession in the name of King Philip, calling the bay 
"Monterey" in honor of his patron. 

The friars gave the name of their order to the river that flowed a league away from the 
landing place. 

Leaving a huge wooden cross as a sign that the land was the King's, Vizcaino re-embarked 
and spent the next hours preparing a report of his discovery for King Philip. 

After dwelling upon the great size of the harbor, he concluded by saying: "This port is 
sheltered from all winds, while on the immediate shore there are pines, from which masts of 
any desired length can be obtained, as well as live oaks and white oaks, rosemary, the vine, the 
Rose of Alexandria, a great variety of game such as the rabbit, hare, partridges and other sorts 
of species found in Spain. This land has a genial climate, its waters are good and it is fertile. 



8 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

judging from the varied and luxuriant growth of trees and plants. It is tliickly settled with a 
people whom I found to be of a gentle disposition, peaceable and tractable. ... , , ^ , 

"Their food consists of seeds, which they have in great abundance and variety, and of llesti 
of game such as deer, which are larger than cows, and of bear, neat cattle and bisons and many 
other animals. The Indians are of good stature and fair complexion and pleasmg countenance. 
The clothing of the people of the coast lands consists of the skins of the sea-wolves (otter) 
abounding there, which they tan and dress better than is done in Castile; they possess also, in 
great quantity, flax like that of Castile, hemp and cotton from which they make fishing lines and 
nets for rabbits and hares. 

"They have vessels of pine and wood, very well made, in which they go to sea, fourteen 
paddlemen to the side, with great dexterity in stormy weather. They are well acquainted with 
gold and silver and said thev were found in the interior." 

Some dried berries, a few otter skins and feather ornaments were the only riches Vizcaino 
brought back to Mexico. , 

In spite of the failure of both Cabrillo and Vizcaino to find riches. King Philip sent a royal 
order for the latter to take possession of San Diego and Monterey. 

The old sea captain died before the expedition was ready to leave Mexico; so the Indians 
wandered, yet a little longer, undisturbed among the pines. 

At night, if their legends be true, the hugp cross shone Uke a thing on fire, making the 
bay as light as day. They hung berries, shells and fish upon the cross, for they feared this new 

Once, a sick man who dropped at its foot and begged for mercy was cured. Ever after, they 
loved and worshiped it with dnilv offerings. 

CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

The octopus arms of civil war were crushing; Spain and for a century she had no strength 

for foreign conquest. When at last she was free, the Mexican missionaries claimed her attention. 

In 17K5, the head of the Missions, in addition to sending in the regular report, set forth his 

own views of what the missions needed: 

♦Vizoaino probably saw some of the interior Indians who came each summer to get a supply of shell fish for the 
winter, hence the reference to their size and fair complexions. 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 9 

"I have suggested the conquest of Pimeria as the most easy and inexpensive, though the whole 
conquest will not be attended with such valuable consequences as a single colony at Monterey." 

The flourishing, ever-growing Russian settlements along the North California coast, his own 
constantly increasing commerce witli the Philippines and the expulsion of Jesuit priests from the 
Lower California missions kept Monterey before the eyes of Carlos III. 

While English colonists on the Eastern coast were plotting revolution against George III, 
Carlos III authorized the exploration and occupation of San Diego and Monterey. 

Determined not to be a repetition of Vizcaino's second expedition, this one started in four 
sections. The flagship, San Carlos, with Lieutenant Pages on board, left La Paz, Mexico, Janu- 
ary 9, 1769. A month later, February 15, the San Antonio, commanded by Juan Perez, followed. 

On March 21, the advance section of the land party, under Rivera, set out from San Bias. 
The main party, headed by Don Caspar de Portola, general of the expedition and reputed dis- 
coverer of San Francisco, started in May. With them was Padre Junipero Serra, President of 
the missions to be founded. 

Padre Serra was afflicted by an incurable sore on his leg and the long marches made it 
exceedingly painful. Finally the pain became so severe as to prevent his walking. Someone sug- 
gested making a litter and carrying him. He refused. 

"So," says his friend, Palou, "he prayed to God fervently for help and calling Juan A. Coro- 
nel, a mule-driver, said, 'jNIj' son, can you find some remedy for my sore leg.^' 

" 'What remedy can I have.'"' replied Coronel. 'I am only a mule-driver and can only cure 
the wounds of my beasts.' 

" 'Well, son,' said the Father, 'imagine that I am one of those beasts and that this is one of 
their wounds ; apply the same remedy.' 

"The mule-driver, smiling, said, 'I will do so. Father, to jilease you.' Taking some suet, 
he mixed it with herbs, making a kind of plaster or poultice, wliich was applied according to 
directions. God rewarded the humility of his servant and tlie leg got better." 

SAN DIEGO FOUNDED 

In spite of hardships, all four parties reached San Diego safely; Portola last, on July 1, 
1769. Mission San Diego was immediately founded and the San Antonio sent back to San Bias 
to report and obtain more supplies for the new settlement. 



10 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

Two weeks later, the combined forces of Portola and Rivera, sixtj-five men in all, went forth 
by land to find Monterey. Padre Serra remained behind to get his mission into good working 
condition. 

"From about four leagues north of San Diego." says Lieutenant Pages, "Indian natives be- 
gan to present themselves, and although they showed excessive fear on approaching our people, in 
a short time they laid aside their fears and accompanied our men even with importunity and 
fatigue, immensely satisfied with the gifts which we made them — apportioning them strings of 
glass beads and other trinkets, which they admire very much. From them we obtained the need- 
ful information about roads and water as well as many presents of game and fish." 

MONTEREY REDISCOVERED 

On Saturday, September 23. the exhausted explorers came upon a canyon through which 
flowed a river. They believed it to be the Carmelo, as there were large trees growing on its 
banks. 

They followed the river feverishly for a week and then sent scouts ahead to explore its 
mouth. The scouts returned and reported that: "the river emptied into an estuary which entered 
the canyon from the sea ; that the beach bordered by sand dunes had been seen to the north and 
south, the coast forming an immense bay, and that, to the south, there was a low hill covered with 
trees like pines, which terminated in a point in the sea." They decided it was not ^lonterey. 

In November, they discovered tlie Bay of San Francisco, later so named by Padre Serra.* 
Monterey could not be farther north. 

Wearily, on November 11, they began the journey home. 

They stopped, November 26, at the old camping ground on what they had at first thought 
was the Rio Carmelo. The end of two weeks of fruitlessly exploring the bay found them ready to 
give U]! and go home. 

There is a tired conciseness in Costanso's* portrayal of their departure: "Sund. Dec. 10: 
Before leaving this Bay we erected a cross upon the beach with an inscription cut into the 
wood 'Dig, at the foot thou wilt find a writing.' " 

•Many prominent historians claim that Sir Francis Drake discovered and named San Francisco Bay on his 
famous trip around the world. There does not seem to be any proof that their contentions are correct. 

•Costanso was the engineer of the expedition. 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 11 

After giving a brief account of their journey, the writing concluded: "Finally, now disap- 
pointed and despairing of finding the port after so many endeavors, labors and hardships, and 
without other provisions than fourteen sacks of flour, the expedition sets out this day from this 
Bay for San Diego." 

January 21, they reached San Diego, only to learn of bitter sufferings there. Undaunted, 
Padre Serra set out in the San Antonio and Portola again took the trail north. 

Less than four months sufficed to bring the land party once more to the cross they had 
planted, unknowingly, on the shores of Monterey Bay. This time they readily recognized the long- 
sought harbor. 

While waiting for the San Antonio, they were busy making friends with the Indians. "The 
natives of Monterey," sa^s Costanso in his diary, "live in the hills, the nearest about one and a 
half leagues from the coast. These mountaineers are extremely gentle. They never come to 
visit the Spaniards without bringing them a substantial present of game, which, as a rule, consists 
of two or three deer or antelope, which they offer without demanding or even asking anything in 
return." 

Won by presents of beads and ribbons, the Indians readily told tiieir legends of the visit of 
Vizcaino and the cross of fire as well as many things about their own religion and their God, 
Chinigchinig. 

On Wednesday, May 30, one week after Portola's arrival, the San Antonio, bringing Padre 
Serra and all things necessary for the founding of three missions, anchored close up to the shore. 

Four days later, on the third of June, 1770, was founded the mission and presidio of San 
Carlos Borromeo de Monterey. 

San Carlos (Saint Charles) was the son of an Italian nobleman. He gave up the pleasures 
of a life at court to enter the priesthood. He died in 15^1 and was canonized a saint in I6l0. 
For him the mission was named and to him dedicated. 

"On the feast of Pentecost," writes Padre Serra, in a letter to the Grand Master in Mexico, 
"close by the same shore and under the same oak-tree under which the Fathers of Vizcaino's expe- 
dition had celebrated mass, we built an altar. After the ringing of the hells and the singing of 
the Hymn Veni Creator, the water was blessed and we erected and blessed a great cross and 
unfurled the royal colors. 



12 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

"I then sang the first High Mass known to have been offered at this place. During mass 
I preached and at its conclusion we chanted the Salve Regina before a picture of Our Lady, 
which occupied a place on the altar. The ceremonies were concluded with the singing of the 
Te Deum, after which the officers performed the act of taking possession of the land in the name 
of the King, our Lord. The celebration was accompanied with the firing of cannon, both on 
land and on board the ship." 

This letter was despatched to jMexico by Pnrtola, who sailed south on the San Antonio, turn- 
ing his command over to Lieutenant Pages. 

All hands set to work putting up a rustic shrlter of boughs and tule grass for the altar. 

Eager for more beads, the Indians brought great limbs of trees and the choicest of tall tules. 
There was nothing warlike about these Indians. They were skilled in the arts of peace alone. 

With Junipero Serra had come his lifelong friend, Padre Palou. While Padre Serra was busy 
with the actual conduct of the mission, Fray Palou was studying Indians. Some of their customs, 
as he reports them, are quite odd : 

"All the natives of Upper California, both men and women, cut their haii very short, especially 
when some of their relatives or friends die. In these cases, they also put ashes on their heads, 
faces and other parts of the body. 

"Both sexes go nearly naked, having only a wrapper around the waist. In winter they use 
a sort of outer garment of deer-skin or otter-skin, or the feathers of water fowl. These latter are 
chiefly worn by the women. The feathers are twisted or tied together into a sort of ropes and 
these are then tied together so as to leave a feathery surface on both sides. 

"The natives of this part of the country maintain themselves by the seeds and herbs of the 
field, to collect which, when in season, is the duty of the women. The seeds they grind and of 
the flour make gruel and sometimes a kind of pudding of dough, which they form into balls of the 
size of an orange. Some of the flour has an agreeable taste and is very nutritious : tliat produced 
from a black seed has the taste of toasted almonds. To this diet they add fish which they catch 
on the shores of the Bay and wliicli are exceedingly good; they have also shell fish in abundance." 

"In removing, they take all tlieir furniture on their shoulders. It consists of: a chest, a dish, 
a bow] made in the shaj^e of a high-crowned hat. a bone which serves them for an awl in making it, 
a little piece of touchstone for kindling a fire, a small net in which they put their fruit and nuts, 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 13 

another in the sliape of a purse or bag fastened to a kind of prong across their shoulders, in which 
tliey carry their children, and lastly, their bow and arrows, to which some, who affect elegancy, 
add a horn for drinking. Those who live near the coast have also a net for fishing." 

SAN CARLOS DEL CARMELO 

For a year the mission remained at Monterey. Padre Serra had come to realize by that time 
that it would prosper better in the valley of El Rio Carmelo, five miles away. The crops had to 
be raised there; most of the Indians lived there and they would be farther from the evil influences 
of the Presidio in that place. The mission at Monterey was therefore abandoned and moved to 
Carmel. 

Neophytes at once began to get timbers ready for a new church. A few months later, Padre 
Serra reported that: "A line of strong, high posts, set into the ground close together, enclosed a 
rectangular space which contained simple wooden houses serving as church and dwellings. The 
walls of these took tlie stockade form. The square was seventy yards long and forty-three yards 
wide, with ravelins at the corners. For want of nails, the upright palisades were not secured at 
the top. 

"Within, the chief building, also of palisade walls, plastered inside and out with clay, meas- 
ured seven by fifty yards and was divided into six rooms. One room served for a church, another 
for the missionaries and a third for a store-room. The best rooms were wliitewashed. This 
building was roofed witli timbers, which were covered with mud. A slighter structure, used as a 
kitchen, was roofed with grass. Outside the stockade were the huts of the Indians." 

In this cliai)el, with the lielp of their portable grind organ, whose front was made to resemble 
a pipe-organ. Padres Serra and Palou said mass and tried to teach Christianity to the Indians. 

San Carlos Borromeo del Carmelo de Monterey became the capital of the missions, where 
Padre Serra himself labored. For such a position, a mere log chapel would not suffice. They 
immediately commenced to quarry stone from the nearby hills for a new clnirch. Before Padre 
Serra died, the walls of this building were about ten feet high. It was completed after his death. 

Besides San Carlos, only the Royal Chapel at Monterey and Mission Santa Barbara ever 
had stone chapels. 

The Indians took kindly to the monotonous life of prayer, work and sleep and San Carlos 



14 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

prospered. General Pages' report of 1773 showed "That there were 162 neopliytes. Of these, 15 
had been baptized and there had been 26 marriages." 

The children were in time taught to weave, crochet and knit, to practice carpentry, to forge 
and plow, and, according to church authority, a few of the brightest to read and write; but always 
with a view merely of teaching them to do, never of training them to teach others. The Padres 
looked after their social needs, too, and as substitutes for their savage and often immoral dances 
provided bull-fights, cock-fights, horse races, civilized dances and simple games. 

"The control of the neophytes,"' ran the royal decree, "and their education and correction 
are to be left exclusively to the friars, acting in tiie capacity of fatliers toward children." 

Some idea of the amount of work they accomplished may be gathered from a letter of Padre 
Serra to Mexico, dated Sept. 9, 1771: 

"This year there have been harvested at this mission, in addition to 20 fanegas (bushels) of 
barley, 125 of wheat, together with some horse-beans, and a greater quantity of kidney-beans and 
continuous crops from the vegetable gardens, in the consumption of which all share. There is 
reason for expecting a fair return from the maize sown, as it is now well grown and in good 
condition. 

"There will be obtained a goodly number of fish from the abundance of sardines which for 
twenty days have been spawning along the beacli near this mission, and a reasonable harvest from 
tlie sjiiritual advancement we are experiencing every day, thanks be to God. At all the missions 
preparations are making for more extensive sowings next year and I trust in God that a happy 
outcome may attend the work." 

A PIONEER CAPITAL 

Until Governor Neve arrived in 1771. life at the Presidio was almost as monotonous as that 
at the mission. The soldiers had to assist in putting up their quartei-s and in cultivating enough 
ground to raise a part of their own food. They spent their spare time smoking, ]ilaying cards, 
drinking sweet wine from the Southern Missions and making secret love to the Indian girls who 
came over from San Carlos to work for the officers. In fact, "in 1773, three soldiers had already 
married native women." 







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III 




CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 15 

The mail that came from Spain in 1776 brought a royal command for the Governor to reside 
in Monterey as tiie capital of both Baja (Southern) and Alta (Northern) California. 

Monterey had become in one day mistress of a land of fabled riclies. Yet the even tenor of 
her existence was broken only by Governor Neve's wordy quarrels with President Serra when one 
assumed prerogatives of mission control that were claimed by the other. 

A little diversion was furnished in 1781. For the first time in Monterey's history, the gal- 
leon carrying the rich cargoes from Manila to Spain failed to anchor there en route to the home 
port. Word was sent post haste to Seiior Galvez, Minister of State for Mexico and California. 
He communicated with the King, who decreed that: "In future galleons must call at Monterey 
under a penalty of $1',000, unless prevented by contrary winds." 

In the mail of 178'2, Governor Neve received the welcome news of his recall to Mexico. He 
immediately prepared his official reports and a long series of instructions for his successor, Seiior 
Fages. 

Of first importance, he warned Fages, was the maintenance of friendly relations with the 
Indians. For this purpose he had left several boxes of glass beads and 71 bundles of ribbons to 
be distributed as gifts among them. 

Governor Fages found life in Monterey unpleasantly lonesome. In March, 1781, he brought 
his wife, Doiia Eulalia, and his little son, Pedrito, from Loreto. Thus unpretentiously began the 
social life of the Spanish capital. 

Doiia Eulalia had seen very few Indians on her journey from Mexico to meet her husband 
at Loreto. From thence they came by boat and she saw none. Horror and motherly pity filled 
her lieart at the sight of dozens of them around Monterey nearly naked just as before the coming 
of the white men. In a vain attempt to relieve their supposed suffering, she gave them nearly all 
her own dresses, to the immense delight of the Indians, who used them for everything except to 
wear. 

Life at the Presidio was no longer dull. Very often the lights twinkled there long after the 
stars were asleep and the birds' matins were mingled with the dancing strains of tinkling guitars. 

DEATH OF PADRE SERRA 

One morning, a strange, somber sound broke u])on the ears of the dancers. It was the chapel 
bell of San Carlos, tolling the death of Padre Junipero Serra. He died August 28, 1784. 



16 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

As soon as Padre Palou realized that his loved friend was dead, he had commanded the be- 
wildered neopln'tes to toll the bell. 

Three days before, warned by a dream that his life was near its end. Fray Junipero had 
superintended the making of his own coffin. Now, in the same garments in which he had died, 
his body was laid in the coffin, around which six candles burned. 

Tlie doors were opened and the neophytes, released for the day from mission discipline, 
heaped bouquets of wild flowers at his feet, touched his Iiands with their rosaries and called him 
"Holy Father" and "Blessed One." 

At dusk, the neophytes, soldiers and sailors formed a procession and carried Padre Serra's 
body to the church. A table, with six wax candles already lighted, stood ready to receive the 
revered remains. 

Two soldiers were put on guard to see that no one touched the body. All night, devout 
groups took turns repeating the Rosary and keejnng tearful watch. In the morning. Fray Palou 
found that bits of the Venerable Father's habit and locks of hair had been stolen for relics by 
those who souglit a special blessing. 

On Sunday, August 29, the Requiem Mass was sung. No man, woman or child wlio was 
able to leave his bed was absent. All day long the chapel bell tolled and every half hour 
cannon were fired. The Indian choir sang a dirge at the end of the ceremony, but the sobs of 
the people drowned the voices of the chanters. 

As the last amen was pronounced, the people pressed forward, begging for relies. Fray 
Palou had none to give, but promised to bless and distribute whatever relics he could find, on 
September 5. 

On the apjiointed day, he presented to all who came tiny bits of Padre Serra's undergar- 
ments. To the royal surgeon he gave one of the President's handkerchiefs. 

Years later, the surgeon told of a ))oor sailor whose apparently incurable headache had been 
miraculously removed by binding the handkerchief on his head. 

The soldiers stationed at San Carlos said that for many years, at whatever hour of the night 
the guard was changed, they could hear Padre Serra praying. 

Junipero Serra, pioneer founder of the missions of Alta California, was born in IMallorca,* 
•Also spelled "Majorca." 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 17 

Spain, November 24, 1713. He entered the priesthood while yet a boy and soon became famous 
for liis piety. When the call came for foreign missionaries, he begged to be allowed to go to 
America. Church officials considered him too young. Later, his request was granted and, with 
Palou, he gave up a career to save the heathen. 

Kind, loving, patient — save when the Governors interfered with his prerogatives — coura- 
geous, and, above all, a zealous Catholic, such a man was Junipero Serra. Even today, his teach- 
ings are not forgotten, nor is his stern doctrine of self-|)unishment to atone for sin. 

A strange story is told of one of his modern disciples: A few years ago, a young man was 
out hunting deer. Suddenly he came upon a fresh trail of blood leading away from the road. As 
he followed it, the trail became steadily larger. Thinking it was some wounded animal, he held his 
gun cocked ready to put the poor creature out of its misery. 

All at once he stopped. His gun dropped to the ground and a cry of horror broke from his 
lips. Startled by the noise, a young Indian woman looked around. She held a jagged piece of 
quartz in each hand. With these slie was tearing the flesh on her arms and body. Behind her 
trailed a heavy log, which she was dragging along by a rope knotted around her head. 

No shot was needed to end her suffering. Pain and loss of blood had nearly accomplished 
that. To the man, who vainly tried to bind up her wounds, she whispered in broken English: 
"My baby, he get so sick and I pray, O, how I pray! But my baby died. Then I know the 
white man's God is angry at my boy. He never have been baptized. My mother tell me the 
great Padre Serra say we must suffer to save others, like one big man did, long time ago. So I 
suffer for my baby. I no — mind die, only I 'fraid — he — no — go — to — hea-ven." The last word 
started her soul on its eternal quest for the baby she had lost. 

Palou, at the earnest entreaty of the neophytes, the government officials and the other Padres, 
assumed the office of President until a formal appointment could be made. 

In response to his appeal that his great age unfitted him for such heavy responsibilities, the 
authorities selected Ferniin Francis de La'^uen to succeed Palou. Lasuen was a native of Victoria, 
Spain, and had been working in the California missions since 1768. 

A prominent historian says of him : 

"His piety and humility were of an agreeable t3'pe, unobtrusive and blended with common 



18 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

sense. Padre Lasuen, to a remarkable degree for his time and environment, based his hopes of 
future reward on purity of life, kindness and courtesy to all and a zealous performance of duty 
as a man, a Christian and a Franciscan." 

The need of some organized religious instruction for the inhabitants of Monterey was begin- 
ning to be felt. Accordingly, in 1790, a church was erected, called the Chapel of Our I.ady of 
Guadalupe, ornamented in front with a picture of Our I.ady. In tlie walk before it was a Star of 
Hope, made of the vertebra of wliales, then so common in the Bay. This was the first church, as 
distinct from a mission, established in California. Since it was the chapel in which the King's 
representative worshiped, it came to be known as the Royal Chapel, the only one ever built in 
California. 

A Padre from the mission went over to Monterey once a week and said mass. Sometimes, 
if he was very busy, only once a month. He would go, too, for weddings or christenings or funerals 
and occasionally for some special holiday. 

FIRST FOREIGN VISITOR 
Four years before the Royal Chapel was built, Governor Pages and Dona Eulalia gave a ball 
in honor of the great French scientist, M. La Perousse. It was the first reception to a foreign 
visitor ever held in California. 

La Perousse had been sent by liis King to study and report on the exact conditions in these 
newest colonies of Spain. 

How well Governor Pages succeeded in making the scientist's stay pleasant, is best told in 
La Perousse's own words: 

"Cattle, garden stuff and milk were sent aboard in abundance. The desire of serving us 
seemed even to disturb the harmony between the commander of the two vessels (government 
frigates) and Governor Pages. Each was desirous of providing exclusively for our wants; and 
when the account was to be discharged, we were obliged to insist on their receiving our money. 

"The garden stuff, milk and poultry and the assistance of the garrison in wooding and water- 
ing were offered free; and tlie cattle, sheep and corn were charged at so low a rate that it was 
evident an account had been presented to us merely because we had insisted upon it. 

"Now, as to the place itself. Monterey Bay, formed by New Year's Point to the north and 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 19 

Point Cypress to the south, presents an opening of eight leagues in tliis direction and nearly six 
in depth. To the east, the land is low and sandy. Tl)e sea rolls to the foot of the sandy downs 
which border the coast and produces a noise which we heard when more than a league distant. 
The lands to the north and south of this Bay are elevated and covered with trees. 

"The Spanish vessels which make a long stay at Monterey usually come within six fathoms 
of the shore and anchor in the sand. They are then protected from the strong south winds. 

"There were many whales. The sea was covered with pelicans. I have since been informed 
that they are common over the whole coast of California. 

"European cultivators can form no conception of as abundant fertility of wheat, etc. Fruit 
trees are extremely scarce, but the climate is proper for their cultivation. The forest trees stand 
apart from each other without underwood and a verdant carpet over which it is pleasant to walk 
covers the ground. Tliere are vacant places, several leagues in extent, forming vast plains cov- 
ered with all sorts of game. The land, though very productive, is light and sandy and owes its 
fertility to the humidity of the air. The nearest running stream to the Presidio is two leagues 
distant. It is called by the ancient navigators, Rio de Carmel. 

A DAY WITH THE NEOPHYTES 

"The church (at Carmel) is neat, though thatched witli straw. Adorning it are some toler- 
able pictures copied from originals in Italy. Among the number is a picture of hell, in which 
the painter appears to have borrowed from the imagination of Callot. As the imagination of these 
new converts must be struck with the liveliest impressions, I am persuaded that such a representa- 
tion was never more useful in any country. I doubt whether tiie ])icture of Paradise, op])osite to 
tliat of hell, produces so good an effect. The state of tranquillity which it represents is an idea 
too abstruse for the uncultivated savages. But rewards must be put by the side of punishments 
and it was a point of duty that no change be permitted in the kind of enjoyments which the 
Catholic religion promises to men. 

"The house of the missionaries as well as the different storehouses are opposite the church. 
The Indian village stands on tile right, consisting of about fifty Imts, wliicli serve for TJ'O persons 
of both sexes, including the children, which compose the Mission of San Carlos. These huts are 
the most wretched that are anywhere met with. They are round, six feet in diameter and four 



20 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

feet high. Some stakes, the thickness of a man's arm. stuck in the ground and meeting at the 
top, compose the frame. Eight or ten bundles of straw, ill-arranged over these stakes, are the 
only defense against the rain. When the weather is fine, more than half the hut remains uncovered. 

"The Indians who have embraced Christianity are, in general, diminutive and weak and 
exhibit none of that spirit of indejjendence which cliaracterizes the natives of tlie north. Their 
color nearly approaches that of the negroes whose hair is not woolly. 

"These Indians are extremely skilful with the bow. Their patience in approaching their prey 
is inexpressible. Their industry in hunting larger game is still more remarkable. 

"They have two games at which they s))end a great deal of time. The first of these is called 
Takersia. It consists in throwing a little ring, about three inches in diameter, and making it roll 
in a space ten fathoms (about 6!i feet) square, covered with grass and surrounded by bits of wood. 
Each of the two players has a stick about the size of an ordinary cane and about five feet long. 
They try to put this stick through the ring while it is in motion. If they succeed, they gain two 
points. If the ring, when it stops rolling, reposes on their stick, they gain one point. The game 
is three points. 

"The other game is called Toussi. There are four players, two on each side. Each, in his 
turn, hides a bit of wood in one of his hands, while his partner shouts and makes a thousand ges- 
tures to attract the attention of tlicir adversaries, who must guess which hand holds the wood. 
They gain or lose a point according as they have guessed well or ill and the side which gains has 
a riffht to hide the wood in their turn. The game is five points. 

"Men and women are called together at the sound of a bell ; a priest conducts them to work, 
to church and to all their exercises. I say it with regret, the memory is so painful, that I have 
seen men and women in irons, others in the stocks and. besides, the sound of blows with whips 
might have been heard, for this punishment, too, is permitted, though administered with little 
severity. 

"Corjioral punishment is inflirted on Indians of both sexes who fail in their religious exer- 
cises. Many offenses, whose punishment, in Europe, would be left to Divine justice, are punished 
here by irons or stocks. 

"The Indians, like the missionaries, rise with the sun; go to praver and mass, which last one 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 21 

hour. Durina; this time, in the mitldle of the square, they are cooking some barley flour, tliat has 
been parched before it was ground, in three large kettles. This sort of brotli, which the Indians 
call Atole and which they like very much, is not seasoned with pepper or salt and for us would 
be very insipid. 

"Each hut sends and gets the rations for all its inhabitants on a piece of bark. There is 
neither confusion nor disorder. When the kettles are empty, the scrapings are given to the 
children who have done best in their Catechism. 

"This meal lasts for three-quarters of an hour, after which thej' all go to their labor, some 
to plow the land with oxen, others to spade the garden, etc. 

"The women do scarcely anything except attend to tlieir own and their children's personal 
needs and grind the grain. This latter operation is very difficult and slow, as they have no other 
way of doing it than to crush the grain on a stone with a cylindrical piece of rock. 

"M. de Langle made the missionaries a present of his mill. Now there will be time for spin- 
ning the wool of the sheep and for making coarse stuffs. But, up to the present, the Padres, 
more concerned with their spiritual welfare than their temporal needs, have sadly neglected the 
introduction of the most useful arts. They are, themselves, so austere that they have only a single 
room in wiiich there can be a fire, though it gets very cold here in winter. 

"At noon, the bell announces dinner. The Indians thereupon leave work and send for their 
rations in the same dish in which they got their breakfast. This second broth is thicker than the 
first and there is wheat, corn and beans added to it. The Indians call it Poussoli. 

"They return to work at two o'clock and work till five or six. Thev then have evening praver, 
which lasts nearly an hour and which is followed by a new ration of Atole like that which they 
had for breakfast. Such are all their days." 

La Perousse publislied his report in 1792. That year, England sent one of her own scientists, 
Georn^e ^'^nncouver, to find out what conditions in California reallv were. He, too, was impressed 
with the hospitality of the Padres and tiie wretched life of the neopliytes. 

"Our reception at the mission," he reports, "could not fail to convince us of the joy and sat- 
isfaction we communicated to tlie worthy Fathers, who in return made the most hosjiitable offers 
of every refreshment the homely abode afforded. 



22 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

"An Indian village is in the neighborhood; it appeared to us small, j'et the number of its 
inhabitants under the immediate direction of this mission are said to be 800. Notwithstanding 
these people are taught and employed from time to time in many of the occupations most useful 
to civilized society, they had not made themselves any more comfortable habitations than those 
of their forefathers; nor did tliey seem in any resjiect to have benefited by the instruction they 
had received." 

SOCIETY IN SPANISH MONTEREY 

In 1802, one year before Padre Lasuen's death. Senor Munras, the first regularly trained 
surgeon, came to Monterey. He ranked as a captain in tlie army and brought with him his wife 
and little son. 

Twenty-two years later, the Captain's son married. The hollow square of adobes, on El 
Camino Real, very near the Royal Chapel, that he built for his bride was the first home, apart 
from the officers' quarters, in Monterey. Following the custom of Mexico, the Montereyans had 
been warming their rooms b}' means of live coals placed in a pan. 

In his childhood, Senor Munras' mother had told iiim of fireplaces in Spain. A favorite with 
the Padres, he easily secured their best neophyte workmen. By using much time and more 
patience, he finally succeeded in having them build two fireplaces in his new home. They were 
the first in Alta California. 

One day, the ladies of ISIonterey helped put things in order in the new home and the next 
came to take three o'clock tea with the bride. All the older matrons, in their best stiff' silks and 
gay bonnets, sat round the big dining table. In tones as dainty as the cups from which they 
sipped their tea, they chatted of Doiia this and Doila that and the ball of Saturday night. 

In the next room might be heard the soft music of guitars, the light laughter of young girls 
and the rhytlnnic click of their slipper heels as they danced the dreamy afternoon away. 

It was Doiia Munras' first tea and nearly all her guests remained to partake of the evening 
meal, served by awkward Indian girls sent over from Mission San Carlos. 

The gentlemen came in the evening. The old ladies acted as chaperones. The young folks 
spent the night in dancing and planning tomorrow's picnic. 

As the first notes of the contradanza rose above the music of happy voices and eager laugh- 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 23 

ter, eacli caballero hastened to his partner's side. The couples formed as for a quadrille ; but the 
intricate steps tiiat followed bore no resemblance to its American cousin. 

The dancers were scarcely seated when the quick music of "La Jota" sounded. Each Don 
sped to the Sefiorita of his choice and, spreading his bright silk serape (cloak) before her feet, 
sang a love ditty, improvised if possible, to entreat her to dance with him. 

A young officer knelt before the bride, singing: 

PuDicA JovEN (Modest Maid). 
Piidica joven de virtud modelo, 
De mis ensuefios celestial querubin, 
Que entre medio de radiantes nubes 
Oyez la voz del hombre que te ama, 
Oyez la voz del hombre que te llama 
Alma de su alma, vida de su amor. 
******* 

Modest maid of model virtue. 
Cherubim of all my dreams, 
Wand'ring mid the radiant clouds. 
Hear the voice of him who loves you. 
Hear the voice of liim who calls you, 
Soul of his soul, life of his love. 
The music changed ; the grave Comandante murmured to his partner as she curtsied, while, 
held in her outstretched hands, her silken scarf floated mistilj' behind her: 

Los Ojos Neoros. 
"Son tus ojos dos astros que guian 

A la grata mansion deliciosa ; 

Son tus ojos cual pudica rosa 

Que el rocio de la aurora entreabrio ; 

Son dos astros que en el alto cielo 

Brillan siempre con luz vespertina; 



24 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

Son tus ojos, mujer, tan di vinos 
Que el Eterno al formarlos sonrio." 
******* 

Thine eyes are two bright stars that guide 

To pleasing homes of heavenly bliss; 
Thine eyes are like the modest rose 

Half oped by dewdrop's morning kiss; 
They are two stars that in the lofty sky 

With light of evening stars shine all the while; 
Thine eyes, O maiden, are so near divine 
They make the Eternal on his dais smile. 
At last the music ceased. A young girl rose at one end of the room and, while the dancers 
restedj sang: 

La GOLONDRINA (ThE SwALLOw). 

"Adonde ira veloz y fatigada 
La golondrina que de aqui se va? 
Si en el viento remira angustiada 
Buscando abrigo, y no lo encontrara. 
Deje tambien mi patria idolatrada 
Esa mansion que me miro nacer. 
Mi vida es hoy errante y angustiada 
Y yo no puedo a mi mansion volver." 
******* 

Whither fliest thou, swift or weary, 

Swallow, winging far from here.'' 
If, on high, thou meet'st misfortune. 

Aid thou seek'st will not appear. 
Thus I leave my loved country. 
Chasing cloud dreams, far I roam; 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 25 

But, today, I wander weary, 
I cannot regain my home. 
"Senorita Maria will dance El Son," announced Don Munras. As she danced, the young men 
piled their hats on her head till the odd headdress was taller than its wearer. When the dance 
was ended, each hat was redeemed for a piece of silver. 

One lad lingered by her side till the last hat was gone, then, heedless of the opening bars of 
La Varzoviana, whispered in her ear, that was half hid by a huge red rose, nestling in the softly 
twisted hair: 

Te Amo (I Love You). 
"Te amo, si, te amo de veras ; 
No puedo mas ocultarlo ; 
Para que mi bien callarlo 
Si conociendolo estas. 

"No mas silencio que oprime, 
No mas silencio que mata, 
Seras a mi amor ingrata ! 
Dime que no por piedad. 
No, no, por piedad, no, no." 

I love you, yes, I love you truly; 
No longer can I hold my tongue. 
That I may well conceal my passion. 
For you already guess my love. 

No longer, silence that oppresses, 
No longer, silence that destroys, 
Shalt thou be my love's betrayer; 
Be it not, in pity's name. 
No, no, in pity's name, no, no. 



26 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

Before Senorita Maria could answer, another caballero whirled her away for La Varzoviana. 

When the fun was at its highest, a gray light began to steal into the big room. It was morning. 

A few hours later, they started for the picnic grounds, the young sefioritas and the caballeros 
on horseback, the older ladies in carts. 

The wheels of the cart were cut transversely from the lower end of a tree, with a hole 
through the center for a large wood axle. The tongue was a long, heavy beam. The yoke rested 
on the heads of the oxen and was lashed to their horns, close down to the root. 

The deep body of the cart was carefully swept and covered with tule mats, while sheets and 
pieces of canvas were stretched over arched poles to protect the riders from the sun. 

The girls busied themselves with the arrangement of their big, gayly colored silk handker- 
chiefs, which, like the American's sunbonnet, kept freckles away from fair cheeks. The young 
men improvised songs in honor of their favorite senorita or played the Love Call on their 
guitars. 

At the picnic grounds, Indian servants arranged a regular feast. The afternoon was passed 
in horse-racing, card-playing and love-making. 

The party returned to Monterey just as the Angelus bell was ringing. The girls brought 
back with them wild flowers and green branches to decorate the church. The next day was a 
holy day and the Padre (as was the custom for years afterward) spent the night at the Munras' 
home. 

On Saturday came the chief dance of the week, lasting until time to prepare for mass. Sun- 
day morning was spent in church, the rest of the day in innocent revelry. 

So passed the days and the weeks for Dona Munras and the others of her social set. The 
common soldiers and their Indian or Mexican wives meanwhile spent their time in coarser imita- 
tions of the pleasures of the lords and ladies, gente de razon. as they called themselves. 

FEARS OF FOREIGN AGGRESSION 

All along the coast, during the first years of the nineteenth century, apprehensions of danger 
from the Americans were constantly growing. In ]805, Captain Goycocha, Lieutenant Governor 
of Baja California, wrote to the City of Mexico expressing the prevalent opinion of tiic officers: 
"The Anglo-Americans within the past few years have come not only to frequent our waters in 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 27 

search of pearls, etc., but they come with arrogant boldness to anchor in our liarbors. This 
proud nation, constantly increasing its strength, may one day venture to measure it with Spain, 
and acquiring such knowledge of our seas and coasts may make California the object of its attack, 
knowing, by the visits referred to, what the Province contains." 

In 1815, a new Governor, Sola by name, came to live at Monterey. At the executive mansion 
he was met by a delegation of twenty young girls, chaperoned by Dona Magdalena Estudillo, who 
made the address of welcome. Each maiden kissed tlie Governor's hand and was rewarded by 
bon-bons. 

A banquet followed. Flowers from the garden of Felipe Garcia ornamented a table laden 
with the rarest delicacies of the Province. 

In the afternoon, soldiers dressed as vaqueros performed feats of horsemanship. A bear and 
bull fight followed. 

*"Five large gray bears had been caught and fastened in a pen built for the purpose of con- 
fining bulls, during a bullbaiting. A bull held by ropes was brought by men on horseback and 
thrown down. A bear was then drawn up to him and they were fastened together by a rope 
fifteen feet long. One end was tied around the front foot of the bull and the other around the 
hind foot of the bear. The two were then left to spring upon their feet. The bull started for the 
bear — and, it took fourteen bulls to kill the five bears." 

The ladies of Monterey had arranged a ball for the evening and only the firing of the 
morning salute interrupted the dancers. 

While endless festivities were making life at tlie capital one round of pleasure, the mission 
at Carmel was gaining in numbers of neophytes and size of harvests. In 1796. Fray Paveras, tlien 
in his twenty-seventh year, was detailed as a missionary at San Carlos. 

Bancroft says of him: "It was impossible to quarrel with him and even Governor Sola's peev- 
ish and annoying complaints never ruffled his temper. Yet he had an extraordinary business abil- 
ity and was a clear and forcible as well as voluminous writer and, withal, a man of great strength 
of mind and firmness of character." 

Such qualities as these caused the mission autliorities to appoint him President upon the 
death of Padre Lasuen in 1803. 

*Quoted from Pattie "Personal Narrative." p. 304. 



28 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

Mission affairs prospered under his rule. In 1820, the statistics were: Population, 381; large 
stock, 3,438; sheep, 4,032; horses and mules, 438. 

In 1814, Mr. James Gilroy, a Scotchman and founder of the town of Gilroy, came to Monte- 
rey and for five years complained of the deadly monotony of life there. Not even a boat came 
into tlie harbor. Besides, only the socially elect, to wiiich class foreigners did not belong, dared 
go to the teas and picnics. 

In 1819, a pirate vessel from Buenos Ayres, flying its deadly flag, sailed into the harbor and 
began shelling the fort. A few well-aimed missies sutKced to make the little garrison surrender. 
The pirates harmed no one. They were content to take all firearms, silver, jewels and money 
they could find in the town and depart quietly. Seiiora Munras had new spoons, to replace those 
stolen by the pirates, made out of the spangles that she ripjjed ofT two court dresses from Spain. 

INCIPIENT INSURRECTIONS 

Monterey finally became tired of being neglected by His Most Catholic Majesty. Her expe- 
rience with the pirates had proved the inefficiency of his protection. In 1820, the Montereyans 
took things into their own hands. An Ayuntamicnto (Town Council) was elected and Teodose 
Flores made first Alcalde (Mayor) of iSIonterey. 

This Ayuntamicnto continued to hold occasional meetings until 1827. By that time it was 
thoroughly organized and holding regular annual meetings. In the actual revolt of New Spain in 
1822, Monterey played very little part. 

Pirates and revolutions had almost no effect on the every-day life of the capital. When Gov- 
ernor Sola came to Monterey in ISl."), he found a school in operation and took pride in continu- 
ing and improving it. "The Monterey school," say people of that time, "in comparison with even 
the most primitive establisliments of tlie Atlantic States at the same epoch, was a very crude 
affair. . . . 

"Rude benches extended along the sides of a long, low, adobe room with dirty, unpainted walls. 
On a raised platform at one end sat the soldier teacher, of fierce and warlike mien, clad in fan- 
tastic, greasy garments, with ferule in hand. On the wall over his head was a great green cross 
and the picture of a saint, to which each boy came on entering the room to say a bendito aloud. 
Then he approached the platform to salute the master by kissing his hand and receive a bellowed 
permission to take his seat, which he did after throwing his hat on a pile in the corner." 




^^^^^ 



From the Charles B. Turrill Historical Colledlion 



CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 29 

The home of the humbler Spaniard was no more pretentious than the school. One thinfj, how- 
ever, even the poorest could boast was a beautiful bed. Lace-trimmed counterpanes, pillows and 
curtains often hid a bed made by stretching a bull's hide over a wooden frame. Aside from her 
bed, the housewife gave little thought to furniture. A few rawhide-bottomed chairs, or wooden 
benches, a rude table and some cheap copies of religious pictures were sufficient for her needs. 

She always managed, also, to have a little corner and simple altar where the family might 
worship the patron saint of the household. 

The haciendas of the Gente de Razon presented a vivid contrast. Large, cool, airy chambers, 
furniture very often imported from Mexico or S])ain, plenty of silverware and dainty dishes and 
Indian servants (from the mission) to do the work while Dona So and So swung the hammock of 
her first-born (they never used cradles) in time to her lullaby: 

"Duermete, niiio chiquito; 
Duermete, que yo te arrollo; 
Duermete, nifio chiquito, 
Al echo de ro, ro, ro. 

"Duermete, nifio chiquito, 
Ya la luna se metio ; 
Duermete, querido infante, 
Al echo de ro, ro, ro. 

"Callate, chiquito ; 

Callate, bonito. 

Que ahi viene el coyote, 

Y a comerte viene." 
******* 

Softly slumber, little baby, 

Slumber softly as thy swing goes ; 
Gently slumber, little baby. 

By the lull of ro, ro, ro. 



30 CALIFORNIAN COLONIZATION 

Sweetly slumber, little baby, 

For the moon's asleep, I know. 
Close thy eyelids, darling baby, 

By tiie lull of ro, ro, ro. 

Hush thy sobs, dear baby ; 
Dry thy tears, good baby ; 
Gray wolf comes who heard thee cry ; 
Mother'll hide thee, husii-a-bye. 
A crude echo of that soft lullaby, in tlirough the open door came the drone of an Indian 
mother's "Bye Baby Bunting" song: 

"Hate mes, mes huate, 
Olola, olola, olola, 
Aya, hui hila, 
Aya hui hile. 
Hilo me nanate 
Halma nana halmai 
Chicale, me polote 
Halmana, hal mana." 
*»**♦** 

Hush, my baby; sleep my baby; 
Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye. 
Hark, the woods are sleeping; 
Hark, the wild tilings slumber; 
Father's gone to kill the rabbit 
And the deer so swiftly leaping. 
All to give to his dear baby: 
Close your eyes, close your eyes. 



MEXICAN MONTEREY 31 

The establishment of the Mexican Empire was announced in Monterey in March, 1822, and 
March 26 Governor Sola communicated the news to the commandants and to President Payeras, 
representing the missions, whom he summoned to a junta (meeting) at Monterey. The junta met 
the 9th of April. April 1 1 the Oath of Allegiance to Mexico was taken. 

Iturbide was crowned Emperor Augustin I of Mexico, July 21, 1822. The official announce- 
ment of that event did not reach Monterey till the end of March, 1823. On April 12, the Oath 
of Allegiance to the Emperor was taken at Monterey and, as soon thereafter as the news could 
be carried, in all parts of the Province. 

FIRST FOOTHOLDS OF THE AMERICANS 

In 1822, Captain Goycocha's prophecy of sei enteen years before began to be fulfilled. Amer- 
icans gained their first foothold in Monterey. Hugh McCulloch and William Hartnell established 
the first commercial house in California as a branch of a Lima firm, in June, 1822. The people 
were glad to have it, for through it they were able to obtain imported goods much more quickly 
and inexpensively than heretofore. A revolution was then in progress. Hence official sanction 
of almost any plan was easy to obtain. 

Another circumstance which doubtless made tlie Californians rather kindly disposed toward for- 
eigners was the relief given by the surgeon of the Russian boat Kutusof, during the smallpox 
epidemic of 1821. He had vaccine matter and, while the boat was in Monterey Bay, August, 1821, 
vaccinated fifty-four persons. This was the first vaccination in California. 

Besides being men of keen business acumen, Hartnell and McCulloch were very honest and 
won the respect and friendship of the Californians. Thus simple were the beginnings of the 
Americanization of California. 

REPUBLIC OF MEXICO 

In 1824, the Provinces revolted from the Iturbide empire and established a republic. 

March 26, 1825, the Constitution of the Mexican Republic was ratified at Monterey. 

For the first time in her history, there was no religious ceremony. The Padres declined to 
subscribe to a democracy. They feared the effect of the new government on their missions. 

The Cortez of Spain had decreed, in 1813, that all missions, ten years after their establish- 



32 MEXICAN MONTEREY 

ment should be converted into pueblos, subject to secular authority in all matters, both civil and 
religious. All the missions were more than ten years old. 

DESPOLIATION OF MISSIONS 

Seeing an opportunity to seize the rich mission lands and obtain control of the Pious Fund, 
*the lea.st scrupulous Mexican politicians determined on the immediate enforcement of the seculari- 
zation decree of 1813. 

As if to emphasize their determination, they granted whole leagues of the confiscated lands 
to their political foes, in order to remove them from Mexico and active participation in politics. 

In the half centur}"- since the founding of the first missions, the Padres had labored, often with 
superhuman zeal, to train their neophji;es in the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. To the 
material welfare of the Indians, as contemporary evidence shows, they had given less thought.* 

Moreover, the unnumbered acres of mission land were held by the Padres only as guardians for 
the Indians. When their wards became citizens, the Padres could no longer retain possession of 
the land. Their vows as Franciscan missionaries made it impossible for them to have a regular 
church and diocese, and the successors of Padre Serra were filled with less zeal than was he for 
finding new worlds to conquer. 

In 1825, the Mexican Republic formally recognized California as a Territory, entitled to a 
representative in the Mexican Congress, without a vote. 

Sefior Echeandia was apjjointed first Governor of the Territory. 

Money was needed to carry on the government and eifectually subdue his enemies. To raise 
any large sum by taxation was impossible, since to do so would only furnish the citizens a just 
cause for complaining against him. 

The Pious Fund, with its certain revenue, lay within his grasp if only the secularization of 
the missions could be quickly completed. He tried to hasten their destruction, failed, and, in 1829, 
lost his governorship. 

AMERICANS IN POLITICS 
The foreign residents (mostly Americans) of Monterey banded together and temporarily 

•The Piou.s Funrl. set aside by the Catholic Church for the maintenance of the Missions, was a sure source of 
money to run the government. 

•See. for example the passages quoted from La Perousse; Vancouver's Voyage, etc. 



MEXICAN MONTEREY 33 

restored Echeandia. I. O. Pattie, a Kentuckian who had come to California only a few years 
before, tells how they did it: 

"Captain Cooper, who had been chosen as leader of the foreigners, rolled out a barrel of good 
old rum, inviting all the friends of General Solis (Echeandia's rival) to come and drink his health. 
They drank. We, like good Christians, with the help of some of the inhabitants, conveyed them 
into nearby houses while they remained in their helpless condition, locking the doors that no harm 
might come to them." 

When General Solis, who was then in the south, fighting Echeandia, returned, he was greeted 
by a salute of cannon balls and forced to surrender. 

In the next fifteen years, there were eight Governors of California. In only one case was the 
term of office terminated by anything but revolution. 

The one exception was Governor Figueroa, known as the "best Mexican Governor California 
ever had." He entered upon his duties in January, 1S33, and immediately began a series of re- 
forms. A year before, William Hartnell, now a naturalized Mexican citizen, had started a school. 
To that especially the Governor directed his efforts. Seiior Figueroa died September 29, 183.5. 

Each of the other seven Governors obtained their office through power of money and held it 
by the same means. 

The struggle to wrench the Pious Fund away from the Padres grew yearly more fierce. In 
1834, Senor Hijar, the Director of Colonization, came for the purpose of completing the seculari- 
zation of the missions.* 

Some of the Padres tried to hold their neophytes together, but, with most of their land and 
all of their authority gone, the attempt was futile. Like children suddenly released from all 
restraint, the Indians indulged every whim from mere indolence to actual crime and soon became 
public charges. 

The Pious Fund might have saved them, but it was needed to save the Governors, and the 
Governors now had control. 

By 1840, there were only a few dozen neophytes at San Carlos where, in 1829, Pattie had 
•Senor Hijar came in the brig Natalia, the boat on which Napoleon escaped from St. Helena. It was wreckeil 
while leaving Monterey, and later washed ashore. Pieces of it are still kept as relics. 



■54 MEXICAN MONTEREY 

vaccinated 800. The mission buildings were no longer used. Padre Jose Real, then in charge, lived 
at Monterey and held occasional services at the mission till 1845. 

In Governor Pio Pico's decree of that year, San Carlos is spoken of as a pueblo (abandoned 
mission) and its property ordered to be sold at auction for the payment of debts and maintenance 
of worsiiip. Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Carmelo de Monterey was only "the mummy of a 
buried faith." 

The destruction of the mission was at last complete. 

How urgently the Mexican Governors needed money was shown when Alvarado, a mere cus- 
toms house clerk, overthrew Nicolas Gutierrez in 1836. 

One day. General Gutierrez placed a guard on board a vessel that had just come to anchor 
with the avowed purpose of putting an end to the customs officers' practice of accepting and keep- 
ing bribes. 

Thoroughly angry, they sent their clerk, Alvarado, to coax the Governor to remove the 
guard. The young clerk was fine looking, with dark hair and eyes and a clear complexion thai 
associated itself with boyish frankness. 

Gutierrez refused all requests and, as Alvarado's pleadings grew too eloquent, ordered him 
put in irons. Before the order could be executed, Alvarado had bribed his way past the guards 
and was on the road to San Juan Bautista. 

Seeking shelter for the night, he came upon the log house of Isaac Graham, a sturdy Ten- 
nessee backwoodsman. To him Alvarado hold his story. In order to enlist Graham's aid, he prom- 
ised, if he were successful in deposing Gutierrez, to grant Californian independence and new laws 
permitting foreigners to acquire land without becoming Mexican citizens. 

At Graham's call, fifty foreigners assembled, elected him captain, and joined the twenty-five 
Californians Alvarado had hastily collected. Under Alvarado's command, they marched against 
Monterey. 

Forty-eight hours were spent in exchanging grandiloquent challenges and proclamations. Then 
Graham announced that "two days and niglits a-waitin' on them baars was enough." 

Under a flag of truce, he sent a blunt demand to Gutierrez to surrender within two hours. 
The Governor paid no attention. 



MEXICAN MONTEREY 35 

At the end of two hours, Graham sent a ball from a four-pound brass piece through the tile 
roof of the executive mansion, just as the Governor sat down to dine. Gutierrez immediately sur- 
rendered.* 

Tims Alvarado became Governor. But the promised laws failed to appear. The Mexicans 
were afraid of tlieir American allies. 

Tiiese bloodless revolutions interfered but little with the daily round of pleasures of the gen- 
eral populace, wliich culminated, each week, with Saturday's all daj' and all night dance. Their 
nights were filled with dancing and gambling and their days with picnics and hunting trips. 

A favorite sport was hunting gray bears, which roamed the hills back of Monterey in great 
numbers. A horse was killed at a place where the bears usually gathered. Not far from the horse, 
a sort of scaffold, made of branches, was erected and u])on this the hunters hid themselves. When 
the bears came for their tempting meal, lances, knives and bullets showered down upon them from 
the scaffold and the hunt was over. 

Foreign scientists and explorers had been visiting California in steadily increasing numbers ever 
since the founding of Monterey in 1770. Not one of them failed to be impressed by tlie old capital. 

The first scientist to make a very great impression on Monterey was Captain John C. Fre- 
mont, a United States topographical engineer. On Sunday, July 19, 1840, he rode into Monterey 
with his company of 180 men. They were mountaineers and frontiersmen, clad in buckskins and 
moccasins, sunburned and almost as formidable in appearance as a band of Apache Indians. 

These Gringos (literally, ignoramus — men without manners of any sort), as the Californians 
called them, entertained the Montereyans with a new sport. Each man shot at Mexican dollars 
furnished by the young officers of the British ship CoUin^wood then in port. Each man kept the 
dollars he hit. The sport, though very exciting, only lasted a little while, for none of the British 
officers were millionaires. 

Fremont himself devoted a few lines in his Memoirs to his first view of the capital: 

"Before us to the right was the town of Monterey, with its red-tiled roofs and large gardens 
enclosed by high adobe walls capped with red tiles. To the left, the view was over the ships in the 
Bay and on over the ocean, where the July sun made the sea-breeze and the shade of the pine trees 

grateful." 

•Cal. Reports V. 1, p. 5S0 ff. 



36 MEXICAN MONTEREY 

Even more spectacular than Fremont's entrance was the next appearance of a band of Ameri- 
cans in Monterey some two years later. At that time, relations between Mexico and the United 
States were daily becoming more strained. The Te.xas question threatened to involve the two 
countries in actual war. 

California was still a Province of Mexico in form if not in spirit and, as such, would be a 
legitimate object of attack in case of war. Realizing the danger of permitting a European nation 
to obtain a foothold on her Western coast, the government gave orders to all officers in the Pacific 
to seize and hold the ports of California as soon as war was declared. 

In 18 12, Commodore Thomas A. P. Catesby Jones, then at Callao, heard that hostilities had 
actually commenced. 

He immediately set sail for Monterey, arriving there October 20. At 1 1 a. m. he sent ashore 
about 150 men to take possession of the Castillo (fort) and raise the American flag. They met 
no resistance. At noon, the Mexican flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised, while the 
guns of fort and warship joined in a salute. 

The territory surrendered extended from San Juan Bautista to San Euis Obispo. 

Before night, the Commodore learned of his mistake as to the commencing of active warfare and 
with many apologies, took down the flag and withdrew. 

Sailing south, Jones stopped at Los Angeles to repeat his apologies to Governor Micletorena, 
then on his way to Monterey. 

Neither the Governor nor the people of California seem to have cherished any hard feelings 
against the impulsive commodore or the United States because of this mistake. The Californians 
had sufl^ered too long from Mexico's nedect to resent an insult to the Mexican flag. 

THE LAST MEXICAN GOVERNOR 

Micheltorena was the last Governor sent to California by Mexico. His character, as described 
by Bancroft, was typical of that of most of the Mexican Governors: 

"He was a strange mixture of good and bad; a most fascinating and popular gentleman; hon- 
est, skilful and efficient as an official in minor matters; utterly weak, unreliable and even dishonor- 
able in all emergencies. In person, he was tall, slight and straight, with agreeable features, clean- 
shaven face, light complexion and brown hair." 



MEXICAN MONTEREY ll 

His rule, lasting a little over two years, was one long story of Indian revolts, soldiers' mutinies 
and politicians' plots. 

February 1, 1845. he was driven out by Vallejo, Alvarado and Castro and Don Pio Pico 
elected Governor. "Don Pio Pico," writes an American officer in California at that time, "is about 
five feet seven inches high, corpulent, very dark, with strongly marked African features. He is, no 
doubt, an amiable, kind-hearted man who has ever been the tool of knaves. He does not appear to 
be more intelligent than the rancheros generally are. He can sign his name, but cannot, I am 
informed, write a connected letter." 

CONCILIATING CALIFORNIA 

During the later thirties, the American administration began to study the California situation. 
In 1832, a diplomatic American merchant, Thomas O. Larkin, had engaged in business in Monterey. 
In 1 842, the United States sent him a commission as Consul to protect American shipping interests 
and colonists. In a secret letter, they also appointed him confidential agent. 

His duties were to report all significant changes in the local political situation and to make 
the Californians friendly to the United States. Consul Larkin succeeded almost perfectly in doing 
both. 

His home was the scene of the most brilliant and select balls, where more than one fair 
senorita wore out two pairs of slippers in a single night. 

EUROPEAN COLONIZERS 

Europe was also looking over the situation. 

In 1845, Duflot de Mofras, a French officer, came from Louis Philippe to California to look 
over the country with reference to colonizing a part of it for France. He made extensive investi- 
gations at Monterey and reported favorably to his government. 

Since this French plan of colonization was abandoned on account of the change in governments 
in 1846, its only real importance was to help keep California before the eyes of the world. 

Ireland's interests were represented by Eugene MacNamara, an Irish Catholic priest, who 
planned an Irish colony for California. 

Early in the year 184.5. he petitioned the government of Mexico for land. He stated that the 
enterprise had in view three things: "First, the advance of Catholicism; second, to promote the 



38 MEXICAN MONTEREY 

interests of his countrymen; third, to place an impediment in the way of the spread of an anti- 
Catholic nation." 

He promised two thousand families at first and more to follow. 

Growing tired of the delays incident to all such undertakings, he wrote a letter to the Presi- 
dent, urging haste. 

"If the means I propose to you are not promptly adopted," he wrote, "Your Excellency may 
rest assured that before the end of another year the Californias will form a part of the American 
Union." 

On June 2.Q, 1846, he arrived in Santa Barbara armed with the proper authority from Mex- 
ico. Governor Pico approved the plan and referred it to the Departmental Assembly. Upon the 
seventh day of July, that body gave its approval and turned the papers over to Pico for his signa- 
ture. 

Too late; Father MacNamara's prophecy of 1845 had already been fulfilled. 

BEAR FLAG 

In 184.5, five years after his first expedition to California, Captain Fremont again crossed the 
Sierras. This time he came to make some topographical surveys of possible routes across the 
Rockies to California. He brought with him about sixty assistants, all quite as skilful with the 
rifle as with the surveyor's rod. 

The young Captain obtained permission from General Jose Castro, acting Comandante of Upper 
California, to winter in the San Joaquin Valley. 

Castro, as seen by one of the American officers, was "a villain with a lean body, dark face, 
black mustachios, pointed nose, flabby cheeks, uneasy eyes, and hands and heart so foul as to 
require a Spanish cloak, in all kinds of weather, to cover them." 

The surveying party moved about so freely as te awaken Castro's fears of possible motives 
other than that of survey. In March, \8l6, he ordered them to leave California at once. 

Fremont retreated to the Gavilan Peak, back of San Juan Bautista, raised the American flag 
and waited for the enemy. Castro did not attack. Following the advice given in a letter of Consul 
Larkin's, Fremont did not longer defy the Mexicans, but set out with all his men for the Oregon 
country. 



MEXICAN MONTEREY 39 

During this time, fenr of the United States was daily growing among the Mexican politicians. 
March 27, 1845, a meeting was held at Monterey to discuss the advisability of calling upon Eng- 
land for protection. 

Castro and Alvarado diifered with Vallejo as to the proper course to be pursued. 

Don Raphael, one of the leading Montereyans of that time, put an end to the discussion in 
his usual witty way. "Our object is to preserve our country, but she is gone. California is lost to 
us and this proposal to invoke the protection of England is only to seek another owner. The redress 
is worthy of the market woman. A dog had robbed her hamper of a leg of mutton. She sent 
another more powerful dog against him to get it away. 

"When asked what good that would do her, she replied that it would be some satisfaction to 
see the first dog deprived of the stolen leg. And so it is with us; the mutton is gone and the 
choice of dogs only remains. Others may prefer the bulldog; but I prefer the regular hound. He 
has outstripped the other in the chase and so let him have the game." The convention broke up 
without deciding on any definite course of action. 

April 17. 1816, the U. S. sloop Cyane, from Mazatlan, cast anchor in Monterey Bay, She 
brought Commodore Sloat and Lieutenant Gillespie. The latter had secret dispatches for 
Fremont.* 

Finding the Captain had started for Oregon, he followed. After an exciting chase. May 9, 
1846, Gillespie overtook Fremont on the shore of Klamath Lake and the wiiole party started south. 

All this time, rumors of war with Mexico kept coming with increasing frequency. In June, 
a party of foreigners, chiefly Americans, banded together at Sonoma, Sutter's Fort and vicinity, 
under the leadership of William B, Ide, 

Tlieir object, as stated by Mr, Ide in a proclamation issued at Sonoma, June 18, 1816, a few 
days after they had captured the town, was: 

"To overthrow a government which has seized upon the missions for its individual aggran- 
dizement; which has ruined and shamefully oppressed the laboring people of California by its 
enormous exactions on goods imported into the country, is the determined purpose of the brave men 
who have associated together under my command," 

The United States government had been anxious to induce California, already in a state of 
•Fremont's "LetterB." Congress documents. 



40 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

semi-revolt from Mexico, to come into the Union of her own free will. To accomplish this, it 
was necessary that nothing whatever be done to antagonize tlie Californians. 

At Monterey, Consul Larkin, besides looking after the needs of American seamen and colo- 
nists, had become a close friend of the most influential Californians. 

In the midst of his peaceful winning of the Iiearts of the people, came the Bear Flag revolt 
at Sonoma. Captain Fremont had played a part in it; Sutter, founder of New Helvetia (now 
Sacramento) and supposed friend of the Mexicans, had aided it with supplies. 

Even Consul Larkin's consummate skill in diiilomacy would not have made possible a continu- 
ance of friendly relations with the Americans and disaster would inevitably have resulted had not 
news of actual war with Me.\ico made all otlier outbreaks of no importance. 

CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

In July, Commodore Sloat, then commander of the squadron of the Pacific, returned to Monte- 
rey. Memory of Commodore Jones' inglorious mistake in prematurely hoisting the American flag 
in 1842, made him hesitate to risk a repetition of that folly, in spite of the news brought him by 
Gillespie. 

Moreover, though the Government had ordeied Sloat to seize Monterey and San Francisco as 
soon as war with Mexico started, no provision had been made, as far as he knew, for securing 
the co-operation of Captain Fremont. With two American forces in the field, obeying no common 
head, Sloat foresaw serious trouble. 

Nevertheless, .July 6. 1846, he decided to seize Monterey. He immediately sent letters to 
Captain Fremont, botli through Consul Larkin and J. D. Montgomery, commander of the U. S. S. 
Portsmouth at Verba Bucna (San Francisco), hoping thus to secure Fremont's assistance. 

Very early on the morning of the seventh, he called his men together and issued a general 
order, reading, in part: 

"We are now about to land on the territory of Me.Tico, with whom the United States is at 
war. It is not only our duty to take California, !,ut to preserve it afterwards as a part of the 
United States. I scarcely consider it necessary for me to caution American seamen against the 
detestable crime of plundering and maltreating uaoffending inhabitants. That no one may mis- 




CUSTOM HOUSE 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 41 

understand his duty, the following regulations must be strictly observed, as no violation can hope 
to escape the severest punishment. 

"2. No gun is to be fired or other act of hostility committed without express orders from the 

officer commanding the party. 

******* 

"4. No man is to quit the ranks or enter any house for any purpose whatever without express 
orders from an officer. Let every man avoid insult or offense to any unoffending inhabitant and 
especially avoid that eternal disgrace which would be attached to our names and our country's 
name by indignity oiTered to a single female, even be her standing however low it maj'. 

"5. Plundering of every kind is strictly prohibited. Not only does the plundering of the 
smallest article from a prize forfeit all claim to prize money, but the offender must expect to be 
severely punished. 

"6. Finally, let me entreat you, one and all, not to tarnish our hope of bright success by 
any act we shall be ashamed to acknowledge before God and our country." 

Captain Mervine of the Cyane came ashore at seven o'clock to demand the immediate surren- 
der of Monterey. He encountered no opposition, although most of the men of tlie town were 
gathered around the custom house watching the armed marines take their places in small boats and 
row to shore. 

Captain Swasey, an eye witness, gives an amusing account of what followed: "On landing, 
the marines immediately surrounded the custom house and flagstaff, which had just been given a 
coat of white paint. As they hoisted the flag, the halyards broke. Lieutenant Higgins, who wore 
a beautiful new broadcloth uniform, enthusiastically sprang up the staff to fix new ones. The 
flag was raised amid martial music and the town occujiied without firing a shot. " 

That night, Spaniards, Mexicans and Gringos were seated side by side as friends and equals 
at a huge banquet in Consul Larkin's house. Many and amusing were the mistakes of the Amer- 
ican officers who vainly tried to make use of their very small stock of Spanish words. 

One American, still prominent in Monterey business circles, asked for some "jamon" (ham), 



42 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

but mispronounced it "jabon" (soap) and failed to join in the general laugh when the Indian 
girl brought him a cake of soap. 

If Spanish words were hard, Spanish dances proved even liarder, especially since their fair 
partners had to explain the steps by means of signs. The awkward Americans afforded endless 
amusement to the senoritas, even while their gay uniforms won them a place in the graceful 
maidens' hearts. 

David Spence, a local Spanish citizen and afterwards a prominent American, wrote in his 
diary for ,Iuly S: "All is tranquil and the town is almost deserted, for many of the (Mexican) 
officials have fled to tlie country." 

July 9, Montgomery raised the American flag at San Francisco. 

On July 10, the "Bear Flag" at Sonoma was replaced by an American flag. 

Within three days, the two ])orts of Alta California had been captured without firing a gun. 
Unfortunately, the conquest of all California was not so peaceful. 

Sloat made daily efforts to find Fremont, but, although he heard almost every day of the 
Captain's activities in and around Yerba Buena, he did not succeed in establishing direct com- 
munication with him till July 19. 

After the departure of Commodore Jones in 1842, Governor Mieheltorena had hidden his 
extra guns and ammunition at San Juan Bautista. 

July 12, Sloat learned that General Castro, when pursued by Fremont, had hidden two field 
pieces and their shot at San Juan. 

July 17, Mr. Fauntleroy was sent with his command to reconnoitre as far as Mission San Juan 
and to recover the buried guns. 

"On his arrival there," runs Commodore Sloat's report, "he found that the place had been 
taken possession of an hour or two before by Captain Fremont, with whom he returned to Monte- 
rey on the Ipth."* 

Although the Americans had feared British interference in California, no EngUsh ship appeared 
until July 16. 

•The old Presidio at San Juan was sold to the Brcen family. Bv the addition of a wooden second story they 
turned it into a hotel. As it was directly across from the Plaza, it came to be called the Plaza Hotel, under which 
name it still does business. 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 43 

According to Sloat's official report: "On tlie Kith, the British Admiral, Sir George F. Seymour, 
arrived in the Colliitgwood. An officer was immediately sent to tender iiim the usual courtesies 
and facilities of the port. He sailed for the Sandwich Islands the '23rd." 

July 25, Sloat turned over liis command to Commodore Stockton, who had just come from the 
United States to assist Sloat. 

General Castro, driven out of Alta California by Fremont, had assumed command of the 
Mexican forces in the south. 

One of the American boats, the Cyane, left, July 27, for San Diego, bearing Fremont and his 
riflemen to wage war against Castro and his six or ciglit hundred waltzing warriors. Stockton 
had appointed Fremont to command the "Naval Battalion," but neither this fact nor the destination 
of the Cyane was made public. 

Part of his garrison being thus removed, Stockton determined to set up a government that 
would help keep things peaceful. July 28, he ajipointed Walter Colton, chaplain on board the 
U. S. S. Congress, Alcalde of Monterey. 

LAW AND ORDER A LA AMERICAN 

"The capital of tliis queer country," says one of the army officers, "is a mere collection of 
buildings scattered as loosely as if they were so many bullocks at pasture; so that the most expert 
surveyor could not possibly classify them into even very crooked streets. 

"The dwellings, some of which attain to the dignity of a second story, are all built of adobe, 
being slieltered on every side from the sun by ovcrlianging eaves, while toward the rainy quarter 
of the southeast they enjoy tiie additional jsrotection of boughs of trees resting like so many ladders 
on the roof. 

"The center is occupied by a large hall to which everytliing else is subordinate. The hall is 
designed and used for dancing. It has a wood floor and sjirings nightly to the step of those who 
art often greeted in the whirl of their amusements by the rising sun." 

"Externally, the habitations have a cheerless aspect in consequence of the paucity of windows. 
As to public buildings, this cajiital of a Province may with a stretch of charity be said to possess 
four. First is the church, jiart of which is going to decay, while anotlier part is not yet finished; 
its onlv peculiaritv is that it is built, or rather half-built, of stone. Next comes the Castillo, eon- 



44 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

sisting of a small house, surrounded by a low wall, all of adobe. Third is the guard house, a 
paltrj' mud hut without windows. Fourth and last stands the custom house, whicli is, or promises 
to be, for it is not yet completed, a small range of decent offices." 

On Thursday, July 30, C'olton entered upon Ids duties as Alcalde of Monterey. They were 
about the same as those of the mayor of a large city witliout any of the helps that such a mayor 
has. 

In the quaint old capital were emigrants from nearlj' every civilized nation in the world, most 
of them lured thither by the prospect of finding a land of perpetual spring, where labor and law 
were unnecessary and unknown. With such citizens to rule, the Alcalde's task was doubly hard. 

Colton dwelt at length ujjon the high import duties he found on even the cheapest articles. 
"Unbleached cotton, which cost in the United States 6c per j'ard, cost here 50c, and shirtings, 7.^c," 
he wrote. "Plain knives and forks cost $10 the dozen; coarse rawhide shoes, $3 the pair; the cheap- 
est tea, $3 the pound, and a pair of common truck wheels, $75. The duty alone on the coarsest 
hat, even if made of straw, was $3." 

"The revenues derived from these enormous imposts have passed into the hands of a few indi- 
viduals who have placed themselves by violence or fraud at the head of the government." 

Such conditions could only e,^ist because of the Californians' indifference to law and govern- 
ment. A tj'pical instance of their carefree indifference is found in the Alcalde's diary: "Two pris- 
oners asked permission to have their guitars. In the evening when the streets were still and the 
soft moonlight melted through the grates of their prison, their music streamed out upon the quiet 
air with wonderful sweetness and power." 

As gay as their spirits was the costume of the Mexican caballeros. A broad-brimmed, pointed- 
crowned hat of leather, glazed to a mirror-like polish, rested on a huge, red silk handkerchief wound, 
turban fashion, around the head. A band under the chin held the hat in place, while a gold or 
silk cord and tassel, dangling over the side of the hat. hid itself in the mass of dark locks that 
curled around his shoulders. 

A wide, white collar rolled over the blue "spencer" (vest), which fitted close like a coat of 
mail. Gold buttons or silk braid to match the hat tassel, ornamenting the vest, rivaled in bril- 
liancy the red silk sash around the loins. 




From the Charles B, Turrill Hi^oncal Colle(5tion 



*l^*^^^. 




From Charles B. Turiill Historical Ci 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 45 

Tlie black velvet trousers, held in place by the sash, were slit up to the knee, revealing tight- 
fitting buckskin leggings, elaborately carved. 

Spurs with ten-iiich shafts ending in rollers of six points, each at least three inches long, 
rattled against steel plates, keeping time to his song: 

"Vamos arriba, niuchachos; 
Amarense bien las botas ; 
Vamonos a Monterey, 
A comer puras bellotas." 

******* 

Up and away, my jolly boys all; 

Fasten your boots very tight to your feet ; 
Up and away to gay Monterey, 

Sweetest and choicest of acorns to eat. 

The stirrups on the saddle were of wood ; the pommel rose high to the front and back, and a 
wide skirt of stamped leather, through which glistened a red silk serape folded out of the way, 
hung down on all sides of the saddle. 

Like the Romans, they had four meals a day: breakfast at eight, dinner at twelve, tea at 
three, and supper, the chief meal of the day, at eight. 

They picnicked by day and danced by night, save when church or sleep demanded a few pre- 
cious hours. 

They measured their ranchos in leagues and bounded them by rivers and mountains. 

Their cattle were never really counted, but once a year the rancheros held a big rodeo 
(round-up), lasting a week or more, at which there was a general round-up and branding by each 
of such stock as seemed to be his own. All their neighbors and friends came ; a beef, or some- 
times two or three, were barbecued. Even the total stranger, passing along the road, was welcome 
to stop to rest his horse and join in the revels. 

Often the hostess was the mother of twenty or more children, all living, yet she was the gayest 
of them all. and as pretty as her daughters. As one lady said: "My husband gives me everything 



46 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

that I want. I give him myself and his children. There is an Indian girl for every baby as soon 
as it is born; I have only to bear and love them. Why should I not dance?" 

More serious things than rodeos were claiming the attention of the Americans in the latter 
forties. 

On August It. 18-16, a band of Indian horse thieves began their operations on a rancho near 
Monterey. Captain Mervinc captured some Indians thought to be the chief and about twenty of his 
followers and brought them to Monterey for trial. 

Unlike most of the Monterey Indians, the chief was over seven feet tall. "His long hair 
.streamed in darkness down to his waist," said Colton. "His features strikingly resembled those of 
General Jackson. His forehead was high, his eye full of fire and his mouth betrayed great deci- 
sion." 

He successfully showed that the thieves did not belong to his tribe and that bis own men had 
done no wrong. He was therefore given a military uniform, recognized as leader of his tribe and 
made responsible for their future acts. 

CREATION OF CALIFORNIA LITERATURE 

Amid the tumult of war, California's literature was born. The first edition of the first paper 
ever published in California appeared on Saturday, August 15, ISiS. The paper was to be issued 
every Saturday. Colton was the editor-in-chief. 

He took as partner, Semple, a man of varied experiences in almost every part of the known 
world. Colton described his partner as "an emigrant from Kentucky, who stands six foot eight in 
his stockings. He is in a buckskin dress, a foxskin cap, is true with his rifle, ready with his pen 
and quick at his type case." 

The only press in California was "an old Ramage press, of wooden frame, wooden bed and 
plates of hardwood, worked by a screw and capable of making one hundred impressions an hour." 

It had been brought to Monterey from Boston in 18.S.S by Thomas Shaw. Its original cost 
was $100 and it was used by the Governor and his secretary, Zamarano, to print official documents 
and proclamations. 

"The press." Colton confided to In's dinry, "was old enough to be preserved as a curiosity; the 
mice iiad burrowed into the balls; there were no rules, no leads; the tvpes were all rustv and in 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 47 

pi. It was only by scouring that the letters could be made to show their faces. A sheet or two 
of tin were procured and these with a jackknife were cut into rules and leads. 

"Luckily, we found with the press the greater part of a keg of ink, and now came the main 
scratch for paper. None could be found except what is used to envelope the tobacco of the cigars 
smoked here by the natives. A coaster had a small supply on board which we procured. It is in 
sheets a little larger than the ordinary foolscap and this is the size of our first paper, which we 
have christened the Californian. 

"A crowd was waiting when the first sheet was thrown from the press. Never was a bank run 
upon harder; not, however, by people with paper to get specie, but exactly the reverse. 

"One-half tlie paper is in English, the other in Spanish. The subscription per year is $5, 
the price of a single copy is 12y2C, and it is considered cheap at that." 

*"Our Alphabet: Our type is a S))anish font picked up here in a cloister and has no vv's in it, 
as there are none in Spanish. I have sent to the Sandwich Islands for this letter; in the mean- 
time we must use two v's. Our paper at present is that used for wrapping segars. In due time 
we vvil have something better. Our object is to establisii a press in California and in this we 
wil probably succeed. The absence of my pertner for the last three months and my duties as 
Alcalde here have dedrived our little paper of some of tliose attentions wich I hope it vvil here- 
after receive." 

On September 23, the first exchange, the Oregon Spectator, was brought over by a hunter. 
Colton announced it as a windfall, but the only news from the States it contained was that brought 
to its editor by an overland emigrant. 

Semple, a bachelor, seemed deeply interested in the ladies of Monterey. In the Californian of 
August 29 lie wrote: "The ladies, who are numerous, are handsome and some of tliem beautiful, 
very sprightly, industrious and amiable in tlieir manners ; affectionate to their relatives and friends ; 
kind to their neighbors and generous even to their enemies, and we are in ho])es that tlieir mild 
and genial influence will go far to bring about tliat amity of feeling which is so desirable between 
the old and new citizens of this higlily favored country." 

THE WASHTUB MAIL 

The Calif or7iian's only rival as purveyor of news was the Washtub Mail. Just on the outskirts 
•Quoted from "Californian." 



48 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

of Monterey were some springs which were the washtubs of the town. Thither went the maid serv- 
ants and the housewives who could not afford servants. Each babbled of the things that she saw 
and heard in her own home. 

Often, too, a young man would stop there to chat with his favorite. So were carried such 
thrilling tales of intrigues as the plots of Alvarado to imjirison the foreigners who had helped to 
make him Governor. 

But their real information came from the Indians, always on the move, who stopped at the 
springs and from the politicians, who told some news that they might learn more. 

For the Gringos, who necessarily were not numbered among the intimate friends of the promi- 
nent Californians, the Washtub Mail was the one means of hearing any "town talk." 

For a trinket, a new mantilla, or a piece of gold, these washerwomen would tell anyone the 
very latest news. It was almost sure to be true, too, for they wanted people to come again with 
more gold pieces and bright scarfs. 

"It is an old mail," said Alcalde Colton. "that has long been run in California and has an- 
nounced more revolutions, plots and counterplots than there are mummies in Memphis." 

Only when a love story was involved did the Washtub Mail prevaricate. No one bought love 
stories, so there was no need for them to be true. 

FIRST JURY TRIAL 

When Colton had assumed the duties of Alcalde, there were no prisons except the military 
guard house. White ]ieople were fined, Indians whipped for all except capital offenses. He sub- 
stituted labor on the jniblic buildings for both punishments. 

On Friday, September 4, 1846. he empaneled the first jury ever summoned in California. 
' One-third of the jury," he says, "were Mexicans, one-third Californians and the rest Americans. 
The plaintiff spoke in English; the defendant in French; the jury, save the Americans, in all the 
languages known to California." 

It was a civil suit, Isaac Graham, plaintiff, charged that the defendant had shipped away wood 
belonging to the plaintiff. Mr. W. E. P. Hartnell, one of the jurors, acted as interpreter. The 
jury was out less than an hour; returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and even the defendant 
was satisfied. 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 49 

In fact, the people were so well satisfied with Colton that, on September 15th, when his mili- 
tary commission as Alcalde expired, they elected him to succeed himself in that office. 

In the southern part of the State the American troops under Stockton and Fremont were still 
waging comic opera warfare against General Castro and taking city after city witliout firing a sliot. 

All who voluntarily surrendered were paroled upon their taking oath not to fight against the 
United States again during the existing war. 

Governor Pico and General Flores had surrendered Los Angeles to Lieutenant Gillespie after 
only a nominal resistance. On Frida}', September ] 8th, Stockton sent Kit Carson from Monterey 
to bear dispatches to Washington telling of his easy and complete conquest of California. 

Eleven days after Carson left Monterey with his rosy colored dispatches, a courier, half dead 
from his long ride, arrived from Los Angeles with the news that Pico and Flores had broken their 
parole and that the insurgents were besieging that city, and that because of the small number of 
the American garrison there under Lieutenant Gillespie, they were not expected to hold out many 
days longer. 

Probably no one thing did so much to gain the lasting allegiance of the thinking Californian.s 
as this dishonorable attempt of the insurgents to drive out the Gringo after having accepted 
parole. All the leaders and most of the participants in this rebellion were paroled prisoners. 

The real attitude of the saner part of the Californians is proven by the fact that in Alta 
California the conquest was completed with only one real battle — that of Salinas. This was 
fought between the Americans under Captain Burroughs and a party of insurgents, allied with 
those from the south, under Manuel Castro. Although neither side won a decided victory, it 
broke the power of the insurgents in the north. 

A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS 

By the time Christmas eve had come, the Montereyans had so far forgotten the dangers and 
horrors of war as to hold their usual Christmas celebrations. 

At sunset the bells rang out a merry chime; the windows were filled with streaming light; 
bonfires on plain and steep sent out their pyramids of flame, and the skyrockets burst high over 
all in showering fire. 

While the bonfires still blazed high, the crowd moved toward the church, which was soon 



50 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

filled. Before the altar bent the Virgin Mother in wonder and love over her new-born babe. 
A company of .shepherds entered in flowing robes with high wands garnished with silken streamers 
in which floated all the colors of the rainbow and surrounded with coronals of flowers. 

In their wake followed a hermit, with his long white beard, tattered missal and sin chastising 
lash. Near him figured a wild hunter in the skins of the forest, bearing a huge truncheon sur- 
mounted by an iron rim from which hung in jingling chime fragments of all sonorous metals. 

Then came, last of all, the Evil One, with horned frontlet, disguised hoof and robe of crimson 
flame. 

The shepherds were led on by the Angel Gabriel, in purple wings and garments of light. 
They approached the manger and, kneeling, hvmned their wonder worship in a sweet chant that 
was sustained by the rich tones of exulting harps. 

The hermit and hunter were not among them; they had been beguiled by the Tempter and 
were lingering at a game of dice. The hermit seemed to suspect that all was not right, and read 
his missal vehemently in the pauses of the game; but the hunter was troubled by none of these 
scruples, staked his soul and lost. 

Emboldened by his success, tiie Tempter showed himself among the shepherds, but here he 
encountered Gabriel who knew him of old. He quailed under the eye of that invincible angel and 
fled his presence. The hermit and hunter, once more disenthralled, paid their penitential homage. 
The shepherds departed, singing their hosannas while the voices of the whole assembly rose in the 
choral strain. 

As a token of respect, this performance was repeated next evening ,at the Alcalde's house. 

Two weeks later Senor Colton was initiated into the annual egg-breaking festival. A young 
lady, utterly unmindful of his official dignity, broke a cascarone overthe Alcalde's head while he 
was talking business to her father. 

"In making cascarones," says the Alcalde recounting his experience, "the natural contents of 
the egg are blown out. The shell is filled with scented water or, more often, with gold tinsel and 
flashing paper cut into ten thousand minute particles. The tinsel is rubbed by a dash of the hand 
into your hair and requires no little brushing to get it out. The antagonist is always of the oppo- 
site sex. You must return those shots or encounter raillery which is worse." 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 51 

One of the gayest of the young American officers wlio tried to master the intricacies of the 
contra danza or spent weary hours cutting bright paper into tiny bits to fill transitory casca- 
rones was Captain VV. T. Sherman, afterward the General who was our hero of tlie March to the 
Sea in the Civil War. 

His letters to his fiancee, Miss Ewing, in St. Louis, are full of quaint glimpses of Monterey 
and life in California. 

"The country is lovely in the extreme; the hills are bare, but covered with high grass and 
wild oats ; the slope and valleys near town wooded with pine and live oak, and in the valley 
farther off sycamore and hemlock. 

"The prosjiect from a ship at anchor is fine. The amphitheater in which the town is situ- 
ated, the green hills back, looking as though cultivated, the groups of live oaks resembling apple 
trees, all deceive and make one believe he is looking upon an old and highly cultivated country. 
Such is not, however, the case, for there is not an orchard or vineyard in the country except those 
attached to the missions; no fields save little patches of beans and wheat planted by the Indians 
and no gardens save tlie miserable ones begun by foreigners. 

"Game abounds, but all sorts of provisions except beef are scarce and exceeding dear. Flour 
at $28 a barrel, and hard to get at that; potatoes several dollars a bushel. 

"Monterey is composed of houses built of adobe or sun-dried brick of one or two stories, 
with a narrow balcony across the whole front. About a dozen houses are comfortable and the rest 
mere hovels. There are some families that style themselves Dons, do nothing but walk the streets 
with peaked, broad-brimmed hats and cloaks, or scrapes, which are brightly colored, checkered 
panchos, a colored shirt, silk or fancy pants slashed down the outside with fringe or buttons, shoes 
on their feet and a cigar in their mouth. Such characters were scarce when we first came, but 
Monterey is becoming repopulated. for all have come back from the war to the soutliward. 

"The poorer classes are exactlv like Indians, and most of them arc descended from those 
Indians that were taught civilization and Christianity by the old missionaries. The women are 
like all the other Spanish women, tlie prouder the more Castilian blood they can boast of. Some 
are pretty; all dance and waltz well, but scorn the vulgar accomplishments of reading and writing. 



52 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

They are fond of dancing, and every night of the carnival before Lent there was a fandango at 
some of the houses." 

The Mexican "gentleman of leisure" was the chief victim of Sherman's ridicule. He wrote: 

"A ranclio is a farm, consisting of one, two and sometimes twelve leagues square. On each 
there is generally a Iiouse or luit of adobe, covered with rushes and clapboards, near it a pen called 
a corral, where at night the horses and cattle are herded to be safe from theft by the Indians. 

"Near some of the ranchos there are small fields of corn, wheat, potatoes and beans; but there 
are by no means plenty, as it is difficult to hoe potatoes on horseback, and any employment on foot 
is degrading. The ox pulls the plough, which is nothing but a stick sharpened at the end and 
sometimes shod with a piece of iron. 

"All they want is a good horse, a lasso, glazed hat and tassels, flashy serape, slashed panta- 
loons tipped with velvet and corded with briglit silk ties and a pair of spurs as big as a plate. 
Then they are happy and sit down to their greasy platter of beans and mutton and pity the poor 
Yankee. 

"The women are better, kinder and more industrious. They have to wash all the clothes, grind 
all the corn on a stone by rubbing another over it, plant their patches of onions and red peppers 
and do all the cooking. Some of them are quite amiable, pretty and have good minds, which if 
cultivated would make them above the average. As they now are, they are servants. In the towns 
they pretend to some luxury, have pictures hanging on the walls, looking glasses, Yankee clocks 
and a sofa. Carpets are very rare." 

In another letter he described a Monterey funeral: 

"The child of Don Castro (still in arms against us), a little girl about nine years old and 
very beautiful, died about three weeks ago. All the girls of the town repaired to the house, and 
two days were spent in decorating the person of the little girl. A miniature couch with delicate 
lace curtains, neatly drawn from the decorated canopy, made her bier, on which she was borne 
slowly tlirough the streets to the church. A promiscuous company followed, not silently, two by 
two, but gaily, without order and with a band of music. 

"I was on the piazza of tlie Government House near which it passed and saw the child lying 
as though sleeping on its little bed. Its bearers were women who set their burden down fre- 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 53 

quently to rest or talk, and during this time the band, consisting of harps and violins and some 
jingling instruments, kept playing Spanish tunes. 

"Guns were fired from the houses which they passed, and finding such was the custom of the 
country we got some pistols and fired a perfect salvo — of rejoicing that the child had gone to 
heaven." 

Romances were woven round all the American officers, but none has traveled farther nor been 
more universally believed than that which links the name of General W. T. Sherman with that of 
Senorita Bonifacio, the belle of Monterey. 

No one in the whole province had such beautiful and rare roses as she; and no surer road to 
her favor could be found than the present of a new slip. 

Captain Sherman (as he then was), runs the legend, when he was leaving Monterey, gave her 
a cloth of gold rose to plant in her garden. So long as it grew, he would be faithful and when it 
bloomed she would be his bride. Such was his legendary promise. 

The rose blooms year after year in fadeless beauty. Senorita Bonifacio is still unwed; only 
the gay captain who married Jliss Ewing is gone. 

Four years ago. General Sherman's son, a Catholic priest, went with a friend to visit Senorita 
Bonifacio. The friend acted as interpreter, for the lady speaks only Spanish. 

"Do I look anything like the old gentleman?" (Being very like him.) 

"What old gentleman does he mean.'" 

"Why, General Sherman, my father," answered the lad, piqued at her calm indifTerence. 

"I do not remember what he looked like." 

"Did my father help you plant the rose?" 

"You had better ask the old gentleman." 

"Well, why do you have a sign put on your gate, saying that here is the home of the Sher- 
man Rose?" 

"I have nothing to do with it." 

"But is the story true? Did he plant a rose bush?" 

"I repeat, tliat is a question which you will have to put to the old gentleman. I cannot tell 
you what he did." 



54 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

His curiosity still unsatisfied, the young man had to leave. Perhaps when he meets the old 
gentleman in another world he may ask the question then and hear its true answer. 

All Americans were not so fortunate in their wooings as Captain Sherman. One of the officers 
who was deeply enamored of a certain Spanish maiden went night after night with his guitar 
(which he had learned to play at college) and, seated on the rain barrel beneath her window, sang 
passionate songs of love. 

Being an American, he did not know that when she failed to put a light in her window or 
drop some note to him she was refusing his love more plainly than words could have done. 

At last, weary of being disturbed by his unwelcome music, the lady attached a string to the 
cover of the rain barrel and held the other end at her window. 

In the midst of his saddest song, she pulled the rope. The music was literally "drowned," 
nor were her slumbers again disturbed by the Americano. 

Life in Monterey in Captain Sherman's time was not all a round of gaieties. Early in Feb- 
ruary, 1817, the war in Baja California came to an end, and the specter of war that had been 
threatening Alta California vanished before the actual force of the American fleet. 

Meanwhile far more serious problems than the mere armed conquest of California confronted 
her new rulers. Colton was working night and day to suppress gambling and vice. By March he 
had the foundation of a new school house laid. 

"The building," he says, "is to be thirty by sixty feet, two stories, suitably proportioned, with 
a handsome portico. The labor of the convicts, tlie tax on liquors and tlie banks of the gamblers 
must put it up." 

Two months later tlie first monte (gambling bank) ever run in California was opened in a 
little shack called the Astor House. It would rank now as a sixth class boarding house. 

After a great deal of scheming, Colton gathered fifty of the gamblers into the hotel parlor 
without in the least arousing their suspicions. He addressed them: "I have only a few words to 
say. Gentlemen, you are each fined $20." 

A moment's astonished silence. Then: "You ain't found no cards nor nothin'. Guess a man's 
got as much right to sleep under his bed as in it if he wants to." 

"That is a matter of taste. You are each fined $20." 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 55 

The Alcalde of San Francisco was the first to "come through." "Come, my good fellows," he 
said. "Pay up and no grumbling; this money goes to build a school house where, I hope, our 
children will be taught better principles than tluy gather from the examples of their fathers." 

So, to help the school, the fines were paid without a murmur. 

While C'olton was getting his school built, the guards and garrison were removed from Mont- 
erey. Just how much that meant may be gathered from the diary of Lieutenant Wise, U. S. A. 
He came in the midst of the rainy season and with his companions tramped miserably through the 
muddy streets of Monterey. He wrote: 

"The ladies received us with surly 'adios,' extorted from closed teeth and scowling faces. 
There were a goodly number of sentinels on the alert, prowling about with heavy knives in their 
girdles and the locks of their rifies carefully sheltered from the rain. At night it became a matter 
of bodily danger for an indifferent person to come suddenly in view of one of these vigilant gentle- 
men, for, with but a tolerable ear for music, he might detect the sharp click of a rifle and the hoarse 
caution of: "Look out thar, stranger!" when, if the individual addressed did not speedily shout his 
name and calling, he stood the merest chance of having another eyelet hole bored through his skull." 

Far difl'erent from this was the usual Monterey reception, as described by C'olton or any of 
the other prominent Americans. "You are not expected to wait for a particular invitation, but to 
come without the slightest ceremony; make yourself entirely at home and stay as long as you please. 
You create no flutter in the family"; awaken "no ajiologies. and are greeted every morning with the 
same smile. Generous, forbearing people of Monterey, there is more true hosjiitaiity in one throb 
of your hearts' than circulates for years tlirough the courts and capitols of kings." 

In May, Semple went to Yerba Buena and took with him the printing press of the Calif orninn. 
He kept on issuing the paper until ISflO. A rival sheet, the California Star, made its initial 
appearance in ISIQ. The population was not large enough to support two papers, so, in 18.50, they 
combined under the title Alta Californian. 

The old Monterey press after the establishment of the Alta was brouglit to Sacramento, and 
on it the first newspaper in the Sacramento Valley, called the Placer Times, was printed at Sutter's 
Fort. Soon the paper grew beyond the press caijacity. and it was taiun to Stockton and used in 
the publication of the first journal in that city. It was then taken to Sonora and for several 



56 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

years used for printing tlie first newspaper there. It finally went to Columbia and was burned by 
an incendiary because of trouble with the editors of the Columbia paper. 

By summer of 18-17 Colton's duties were lighter. People were becoming accustomed to law 
and were less prone to disregard it. Then, too, he no longer had to write for the CaUfornian. 

In October he went on a bear hunt with a party of California gentlemen. Just before sunset 
they pitched camp in the mountains about fifteen miles back of Monterey. The chosen place was 
an open glade in the midst of a thicket of pines. 

A bullock was killed and quartered and the quarters dragged around the copse to give the bear 
a scent. The meat was then hung up on a tree in the midst of the glade. 

"After a camp supper and a good cigar, the iuinters laid down to sleep. By the light of the 
moon the servant saw a dim, brown form approaching. Hastily he awakened the men. Instantly 
they jumped up and sprang into their saddles. 

"A cordon was formed around the copse, but before the last horse had taken his place, the 
bear made a burst for life into the surrounding tliicket. 

A dozen riatas hissed about his head as the horsemen gave chase. Finally one riata settled 
around liis neck and sank deep into the soft fur as the horse stopped suddenly. 

"Mad with rage, the bear turned on his opponent, but the horse, with no word from his rider, 
kept the rope taut by his prancing. 

' A sharp hiss, a growl, and tiie riata had slipped from its loggerhead and bruin was making 
one more dash for liberty. Tiie horse, without spur or rein, dashed after him. His rider throwing 
himself over his side and, hanging there like a lampereel to a flying sturgeon, recovered his lasso 
and bruin was brought up again all standing, more furious and frantic than before, while the horse 
pranced and curveted around him like a savage in a death dance over his doomed victim." 

Next day a wild bull was lassoed and set against the bear, which was very carefully untied 
from the tree to which it had been lashed all night. So furious was the ensuing fight that the 
hunters had to shoot both animals. 

Certain lawless young Mexicans saw in Colton's temporary absence an opportunity for all 
sorts of tricks. They took special delight in annoying the Spanish Sisters who were endeavoring to 
keep up the Convent School in Monterey. 





FIRST FRAME HOUSE 




iS^ 



SIMONEAU AND TEVENER 
IN FRONT OF OLD MEXICAN JAIL 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 57 

One day a big Scotch-Irishman who had drunk too freely laid down on the sidewalk in front 
of the convent to sleep it off. When consciousness was just returning, lie saw four Mexicans trying 
to get into the lower windows. His strength increased by drink, the ex-army sergeant rose to his feet 
and thrashed the four. He was received by the Sisters "as became ladies rewarding their pro- 
tector," given a strong cup of coffee, and sent av/ny sober with their blessing. 

In spite of many such disturbances, Monterey prospered under Gringo rule. The Alcalde's 
accounts show that from December, 1846, to June, 1848, there were twelve dry goods stores each 
paying a license fee of $1 per month. 

The sale of building lots was phenomenal. Prices ranged from $10 to $400 each. Only a 
few were cash sales. "No poor man," runs a note in the Alcalde's account book for January, 
1848, "has been denied a lot of land who was willing to work for it — many have paid for their 
land in this way. The town is credited as if })aid in cash, and their bills for work are charged to 
the town as if discharged in cash — this is done to prevent complexity." 

INTRODUCTION OF BRICK AND LUMBER 

March 31, 1848, a brick kiln lot, 90 j-ards long, was sold to George D. Dickerson for .f'^.Q. 
Assisted by his son-in-law, Mr. Lawry, he immediately began preparation of brick for a mansion. 
Only one wing was ever completed, for the builders hastened away to the gold fields, leaving the 
first brick house in California unfinished. 

While Mr. Lawry was baking brick, two Australian ships came into Monterey harbor. There 
was no good dock, so the Captain ordered one of the boats to be beached and sunk for a wharf. 
Before night a great pile of Australian ironwood lay on the sand. 

Within a week six tiny houses of sawn lumber — the first in California — were ready for occu- 
pancy. Their owner, Mr. Botchson, had brought with him his wife and invalid daughter, hoping 
that the climate of Monterey would restore her health. 

In planning the trip with his wife, he had warned her that there were no houses in this wild 
land. Undaunted, she had devised a scheme of having a house made in sections by his skilled 
Australian workmen. Each section was to be numbered and fit, so that even an English sailor 
could put it together. 



58 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

Seeing in her suggestion a good business ))roposition, Mr. Botchson had six made instead of 
one. Four he sold; two he put up side by side for their own use.* 

Their journey had taken nine months, and out of the sheep and cattle they had brought with 
them for food only one cow remained, about the first milk cow in Monterey. 

A few months after they came to Monterey, Mr. Botchson died. Suddenly confronted with 
the necessity of earning her own living, his widow took advantage of the scarcity of good boarding 
houses in Monterey and converted the ironwood cottage into one. 

CUSTOM HOUSE ROBBERY 

Two of her boarders were rather mysterious. One evening, hearing a queer noise in their 
room, she slipped softly downstairs to watch them. 

They were taking gold from sacks very like the Custom House sacks and putting it in a 
box. The box when filled was hid beneath the steps, one of which was loose. 

Then, under pretext of card playing, they made a fire in the yard and burned the sacks. 

Next morning she was gathering chips and, on the sly, looking for bits of sacks. The men 
grew suspicious tliat she had seen something and tried to bribe her to silence. They failed. 

That day, a young friend, fiancee of one of the Customs ofiicers, called. I\Irs. Botchson told 
the story of the sacks. The girl confirmed her fears — the Custom House had been robbed of 
$30,000. Together they went to the girl's lover and told their story. 

A band of soldiers raided the house. They found a woman companion of the ^Mexicans sitting 
on the steps. "Get up," they ordered. "I'll sit still," she replied. The ofiicers dragged her away, 
found the gold and began a search for the thieves. They were caught but not convicted until years 
later when they confessed, as one of their biggest "hauls," the Custom House robbery of 18 18. 

CARMELO 
Life in Carniel in the 'lOs had less tinsel and glitter than that at the Capitol, but was no 
less exciting. 

Lieutenant Wise, growing weary of the social barriers of ilonterey, wandered across the hills 
to Carmel where the walls of caste were broken down like the old adobes of the mission. 

"A quaint, old church," he writes, "falling to decay, with crumbling tower "and belfry, broken 
•The two. known as the "First Lumber House in Cal.." are still used bv Mr. Brotchson's great-grandchildren; 
one forms part of a meat market on Alvai-ado Street, and the others are used only as sheds. 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 59 

roofs and long lines of mud-built dwellings, all in ruins, is what remains of Mission San Carlos. 
It still presents a picturesque a))pcarance, standing on a little rise above a broad, fertile plain of 
many acres, adjacent to the banks of the river and at tiie base a large orchard of fruits and 
flowers." 

He found a gay Mexican seiiora and her daughter in possession of the Queen of the Missions. 
Though less pious, they proved no less hospitable than the padres. Senora Margarita prepared 
an ollala of tomatoes, bread and some of the small game he bad killed during the day. Her 
daughter patted a batch of tortillas into shape. A jug of aguadiente (sour wine) was set on the 
table, and in less than an hour the weary lieutenant had feasted and was ready to retire. 

"The hospitable old lady tumi)led me into her own couch which stood in an angle of the hall," 
he afterward wrote. "At midnight I awoke and found my own individual person deluged with a 
swarm of babies. A gay youth with a drijiping link, nicely balanced against my boots, was 
sitting on my legs with a clear space before him, intently playing monte, to the great detriment 
of the purses of his audience. 

"On glancing around, I beheld the lofty apartment lighted by long tallow candles melted 
against the walls, whose somber smoke clung in dense clouds around the beams. The floor was 
nearly filled, at the lower end, with groups of swarthy Indians, sipping aguadiente and playing 
monte. On either side were double rows of men and women, moving in the most bewildering 
mazes of the contra-danza, keeping time to the most inspiriting music of harps and guitars; whilst 
ever and anon some delighted youth would elevate his voice in a shout of ecstacy at the success of 
some bright-eyed sefiorita in the dance: 'Ay, mi alma! Tona la bolsa! Caramba !' 'Go it, my 
beauty! Take my purse! Beautiful!' 

"It took me but an instant to appreciate all this. And then, being fully roused to my 
wrongs, I gave one vigorous spring, which sent monte man, candle and all flying against the wall. 
Bounding to my feet, I made a dash at the patrona. drank all the licores on the tray, and, seizing 
her around the waist, away we s]iun through the fandango." 

So passed "the Splendid Idle Forties." 



60 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

GOLD!! 
Monday, May 29, 18i8, a traveler told Monterey of the discovery of gold on the American 
River. 

"The men wondered and talked and the women, too, " says Colton. "but neither believed. The 
sibyls were less skeptical; they said that the moon had, for several nights, appeared not more than 
a cable's lengtli from tlie earth; that a white raven had been seen playing with an infant, and that 
an owl had rung the church bell." 

A week later the Alcalde sent a messenger to the American Fork to find out if the gold stories 
were true. 

Two weeks of excited speculation. Then: "Tlie messenger dismounted in a sea of upturned 
faces. 

"As he drew forth the yellow lumps from his pockets and passed them around among the 
crowd, the doubts wliicli had lingered till now fled. All admitted they were gold except one old 
man, who still persisted they were some Yankee invention got up to reconcile the people to the 
change of flag. 

"The excitement produced was intense and many were soon busy with their hasty prepara- 
tions for departure to the mines. The blacksmith dropped his hannner, the carpenter his plane, 
the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were 
off for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, some on crutches, and one went in a litter. An 
American woman who had recently establisiied a boarding house pulled up stakes before her 
lodgers could pay tlieir bills." 

Within a month every servant in Monterey had gone to the mines. "General Mason, Lieuten- 
ant Lamman and myself form a mess. We have a house and all the table furniture and culinary 
apparatus requisite, but our servants have run," complains Colton. "A general of the United States 
army, the commander of a man-of-war and tlic .-Mcalde of Monterey in a smoking kitchen, grinding 
coffee, toasting herring and peeling onions. Those gold mines will upset all the domestic arrange- 
ments of society." 

Prices of provisions at the mines were fabulous. The cost of 100 pounds of flour at Stockton 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 61 

was $20 — at the mines it was $200. The vast disparity was due to the difficulties of transpor- 
tation. The average wage of a day laborer, however, even at Monterey, was $12 and $13. 

August, 1848, news came of the treaty with Mexico. It usiiered in a winter season of 
unparalleled gaitics that reached their climax in the ball at Consul Larkin's house. That was 
the day before Lent. 

One of the caballeros, as described by an American, presented a picture not easily forgotten: 
"He wore a jacket of green satin with Mexican pesetas for buttons, his waistcoat was of lemon 
colored brocade with gold buttons, the breeches of red velvet, the boots, fashioned out of buckskin, 
bound below the knees with green silk ribbons and embellished further with tassels from which 
hung little figures of cats and dogs made of glass beads. His mantle was of sky-blue cloth with 
red lining, galooned with silver and fringed. He wore his iiair in three long braids." 

Cascarone throwing was at the height of its glory tliat night. "There were two shot in 
that company, in the shape of goose eggs well filled with cologne, to which an unusual interest 
attached. One of them had been brought by General Mason, the other by Doiia .Jimeno. 

"Neither turned an eye but for a moment from the other, but in that moment the Doiia dashed 
to the side of the General and would have crashed her egg on his head had not the blow been 
adroitly parried. The assailed now became the assailant. 

"Doiia Jimeno changed her tactics, stood on the defensive and parried. In one of these 
dextrous foils she dashed her egg on the head of her op])onent, who in the same instant brought 
his down plump on hers." 

Then the church bell tolled twelve and "Lent came in with her ashes to bury the dead." 

Februar}' 23, ISIQ, Rev. S. H. Willey, the first Protestant clergyman in California, landed in 
Monterey. "The following Sunday," he says. "I went on shore at 1 1 o'clock to hold public 
worship for the first time in INIonterey and in California. Service was held in the schoolroom of 
the stone edifice (Colton Hall) used for public purposes. 

"Although, on account of the unjiropitious state of the weather, our meeting was not numer- 
ously attended, I have not yet presided under more interesting circumstances. The text was First 
Corinthians I :23-4. 



62 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

"The town seemed quiet in the morning and no business going on except that the shops were 
open, but not apparently, with the expectation of entertaining customers. 

"Those who have been on sliore later in the day, however, represent that gambling is going on 
in the usual places at a rate scared}' ever seen before." 

Just before daybreak on Tuesday, February 25, 18-19, the first steamship on the Pacific 
puffed into Monterey Bay. 

"Some Indians living on the coast saw her by the light of her fires. Not knowing what to do, 
or what it could be, they ran in great alarm to the interior where Major Hill, their especial 
friend, was. They reported that tliere was a ship off the coast on fire, and, what was more, she 
did not burn up ; but the strangest of all was that she was making rapid headway right against 
the wind and not a sail set." 

The steamer turned all eyes to the future. Alcalde Colton's note in his diary on March 5th 
rends like a prophets utterance: 

"Now all ej'es are turned to San Francisco, with her mud bottoms, her sand hills and her 
chill winds, which cut the stranger like hail driven through the summer solstice. Avarice may 
erect its shanty there, but contentment and a love of the wild and beautiful will construct its 
tabernacle among the flowers, the waving shades and fragrant airs of Monterey. And even they who 
drive the spaded drill in the mines, when their yellow pile shall fill the measure of their purpose, 
will come here to sprinkle these hills with the mansions and cottages of ease and refinement." 

Looking toward the soul's future, Rev. Willey, the young Presbyterian minister strove to 
organize a church among the few who were left in Monterey. "Everything," he said, "is slow 
here except the pursuit of money." 

At last, in May, services were held in the large room of a private house. 

They continued holding meetings at irregular intervals until in 1851, when Rev. Willev was called 
to a larger congregation in the sand hills of San Francisco. 

STRUGGLE FOR STATEHOOD 

The Congress of 1819 adjourned without taking any action on California's appeal for admis- 
sion to the Union. There was a balance of power between slave and free states in the United 
States Senate and the admission of California would inevitably disturb that balance. 




COLTON HALL 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 63 

Several attempts were made by the Californians to organize a State government of their own. 
Finally, late in the summer, General Riley, Military Governor of the Territory, issued a procla- 
mation calling for the election of delegates to a Convention to draw up a Constitution of California. 

Following his suggestion, elections of delegates to a Constitutional Convention were held in 
all parts of the Territory. The chosen representatives met in Colton Hall, September 3, 1819. 
Eight were Californians (f. e., natives of the Territory), the rest Gringos. 

"When they had effected a temporary organization," writes Rev. Willey, "impressed with 
the serious nature of the task they were about to undertake, they asked me to open the session 
with prayer, which I did. 

"I do not know that any of these young men were professedly religious, but on the second 
day, when they had effected a permanent organization, they sent a committee to Padre Ramirez 
and myself, the resident clergymen of Monterey, asking us to open the convention with prayer 
each day, which we did during the session." 

Walter Seniple, formerly assistant editor of the CaUfornian, was elected President. September 
4th the invocation was followed by the newlj' elected President's address, setting forth the objects 
of the Convention : 

"Fellow citizens of the Flouse of Delegates of California: ^Ve arc now, fellow citizens, 
occupying a position to which all eyes are turned. The eyes not only of our sister and parent 
states are upon us, but the eyes of all Europe are now on California. You are called upon by 
your fellow citizens to exert all your influence and power to secure to them all the blessings that 
a good government can bestow on a free people. It is important, then, that in your proceedings 
you should use all possible care, discretion and judgment; and especially that a spirit of compro- 
mise should prevail in all your deliberations. 

"It is to be hoped that every feeling of harmony will be cherished to the utmost in this Con- 
vention. By this course, fellow citizens, I am satisfied that we can prove to the world that Cali- 
fornia has not been settled by unintelligent and unlettered men. * * * 

"Let us then go onward and upward, and let our motto be: '.Justice, Industry and Economy'." 

The Convention was confronted at the outset by a very serious difliculty. Eight of the dele- 
gates were Californians and neither spoke nor understood English. 



64 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

W. E. P. Hartnell, tlic pioneer Monterey business man, was elected interpreter. The native 
delegates were seated around a table with Hartnell at the head and General Vallejo, foremost 
friend of the Americans, at his right. 

"General Vallejo's bodily presence and bearing were most distinguished. He wore no mous- 
tache upon a finely cut upper lip, but the cheeks were fringed with side whiskers, black and 
curly as his hair. His forehead was broad and high, the chin rounded and dimpled, the eyes less 
keen than Alvarado's, but crowned with arching brows. He was, in fine, the typical hidalgo of 
high degree, a trifle pompous for so young a man, but a charming talker, full of anecdote and well 
informed upon many subjects." 

Many amusing debates enlivened the Convention sessions: 

"A section being before the Convention declaring that every citizen arrested for a criminal 
ofTense should be tried by a jury of his peers, a member, unfamiliar with such technical tei-ms, 
moved to strike out the word 'peers.' 'I don't like that word "peers",' said he; 'it ain't repub- 
lican. I'd like to know wliat we want with peers in tliis country; we're not a monarchy and 
we've got no House of Parliament. I vote for no such law.' " 

After two weeks' deliberation, when the end of their labor seemed yet far distant, the question 
of pay was discussed. Finally the per diem allowance of the officers of the Convention was fixed at 
the following rate: "Secretary, $28; Assistant Secretary, $23; Engrossing Clerk, $23; Sergeant at 
Arms, $22; Copying Clerk, $18; Interpreter, $28; InteVpreter's Clerk, $21; Chaplain, $16; Door- 
keeper, $12, and Page, $4. High as these prices are, they were reasonable for their time." 

In all serious discussions, the delegates fell into three groups. First, there were the eight 
Californians, trying hard to comprehend proceedings that were entirely foreign, and they felt more 
or less hostile to them. Second, the Northerners, a decided majority of the American contingent, 
determined to keep the State free from slavery. Third, an equally determined and even more elo- 
quent Southern minority, bent on saving at least part of California for slavery. 

Since gold mining was then the principal occupation in California, even the Southern delegates 
were willing to prohibit slavery for the time being. 

The resolution of Mr. McCarver, an Oregonian, making California a free State, passed 
unanimously, September 19- 



CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 65 

The Southern minority felt sure that Congress would never admit so large a State and that, 
when the division came, they could easily introduce slavery into the southern half and thus regain 
the Senatorial balance. 

California was not divided; the equality of Senatorial power was destroyed, and compromise in 
slave questions was no longer possible. Thus had the new Territory, neglected by Congress be- 
cause of slavery, by passing the McCarver motion, made a war over slavery almost inevitable. 

September 21, the Convention voted $1,000 to print 100 copies in English and 250 in Spanish 
of a stenographic report of tlie proceedings. Some members, on account of the hasty and ill- 
prepared debate, did not want any public report made lest it bring discredit upon tiie Convention. 

The Constitution provided for public grammar schools. A motion to found a State college and 
thus do away with the necessity of sending boys to Hawaii or the Atlantic States, was lost. The 
idea, however, materialized a few years later as the College of California. 

After six weeks of hard work, on Saturday, October l.S. 1849, the Constitution was completed 
and $.')00 paid to Mr. Hamilton for enrolling it on (jarchment. 

Before its adjournment, the Convention had yielded to the blandishments of San Jose politi- 
cians and voted to move the capital from Monterey to San Jose. 

While the Constitutional Convention was in session and Monterey was in the zenith of her glory, 
Mr. Trescony, an Italian, bought the old adobe home of Juan Montenegro, added another wing to 
it and opened there the Washington Hotel.* 

He paid his stone masons $20 a day and charged his guests $10 a day, up. The hotel parlors 
were the scene of the gayest and most fashionable balls, to attend which, the young men and even 
the fair senoritas often came fifty miles on horseback or in slow ox-carts. 

AMERICAN AYUNTAMIENTOS 

In Colton Hall, January 2. 18,50, at 1 p. m., the Ayuntamiento held its first regular meeting 
since the American conquest. P. A. Roach had been elected Alcalde and presided at the meeting. 
Committees on Roads and Bridges, Laws and Ordinances and Ways and Means were apjiointed. 

The following Monday afternoon, the Committee on Ways and Means submitted a list of license 

•The old Washington Hotel was torn down in the Fall of 1913 to make room for modem buildings. It had not 
been used as a hotel in many years. 



66 CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 

rates for all sorts of businesses and for dogs. The Ayuntaniiento agreed that "all dogs not licensed 
were to be killed at public expense." 

The next week, the Ayuntamiento was besieged by pleas for a city hospital. Lack of funds 
made them deaf. 

Some queer ordinances were passed at that meeting: 

"Section 1. Five dollars' fine for each cow, etc., killed in town in an open place. 

"Sec. 2. Five dollars' fine for throwing ofl^al on the streets. 

"Sec. 3. Wells, pits, etc., must be protected by a fence or they will be filled up at the owner's 
expense. 

"Sec. 4. All persons shall, on dark nights, expose a lantern (containing a light) in some con- 
spicuous place on their houses or dwellings or be liable to a fine of .50c for the first omission, one 
dollar for the second, and for any other omissions they shall be liable to such penalties as the 
Alcalde may, in his discretion, deem fit." 

The Ayuntamiento held regular weekly meetings and occasionally a special meeting. Tlie reg- 
ular sessions were chiefly spent in granting town, wood and garden lots. Once they had to make 
out a new deed because the original one had been eaten up by rats. 

On February 7. a committee of five was sent to "offer to the Legislature of California the use 
ef their pubhc buildings for a period of five years from the passage of this ordinance, for its future 
meetings, free of charge." Colton Hall was too small and the offer was rejected. 

Two weeks later, they received a letter from Governor Burnett, saying that government lands 
could not be granted by the Ayuntaniiento. 

To make sure that that body would not exceed its authority in other matters, on March 23, 
Governor Burnett sent a letter to David Spence, clearly defining its powers: 

"The Ayuntamiento, under the sub-prefects and through them to the prefects and Governor, 
shall have charge of the police, health, comfort, ornament, order and security of their respective 
jurisdictions." 

In April, the Ayuntamiento changed its name to Common Council and offered the use of Colton 
Hall to the county officers. The offer was accepted, thus making Monterey the county seat of Mon- 
terey County. 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 67 

Money was constantly being appropriated to repair the public buildings, improve the streets, etc. 
In .lune, the question of delinquent taxes became serious. 

Nevertheless, .$300 was appropriated for the first Fourth of July celebration ever held in Cali- 
fornia. An elaborate program was prepared. 

In the fall, a company of disbanded soldiers came to Monterey. To pass away the time, they 
gave a couple of theatrical performances in an old saloon belonging to John A. Sv/an. These were 
purely private afl'airs, but so great was their success that the soldiers agreed to give a public per- 
formance. "They induced Jack to fix seats, stage and scenery in the old adobe. The bills were 
got out in due form, posters printed with a blacking pot and programmes written announcing 'Put- 
nam' or 'The Lion's Son of '76' as the first piece to be played." 

It was only an experiment. Never before in California had a play been given for which admis- 
sion was charged. The "box-office" receipts were enormous. 

AMERICAN MONTEREY 

September 9, 1850, Congress admitted California to the Union and Monterey became really an 
American county seat. 

AMBITIOUS AYUNTAMIENTOS 

What an uncommon Common Council the men of 1850 hoped to be! They planned that Mon- 
terey should have a public market house, a city physician, fine, clean streets, improved drainage 
system, a new jail, a big, new wharf and the incor])oration of the city. 

In reality, they improved the streets and succeeded in having the Legislature pass a bill to in- 
corporate the city of Monterey. It was signed in April, 1851. The city was to be governed by a 
Mayor, nine Aldermen, an Assessor and a Marshal. The city limits, until all the land could be 
surveyed, were fixed at a radius of one mile from the church. 

The city was specifically given authority to "tax, license and regulate the selling of liquor and 
to suppress houses of ill fame." 

The theater had furnished a new source of revenue in the shape of a license, but delinquent 
taxes continued to be a sourc of annoyance. 

Knowing the Council was short of money, some Catholics tried to buy Colton Hall for use as 



68 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

a young ladies' seminary. The people of the city sent in a petition against selling it and the plan 
fell through. 

In spite of the pressing need of funds, a bill was passed reducing the taxes of widows and 
orphans to one-half the usual rate. 

Xo other bills of interest were passed, though the Council continued to hold regular meetings 
through 1851-2-3. 

May 11, 1853, Monterey's charter was amended and the control of the town vested in three 
trustees. 

The President of the Board was D. R. Ashley, attorney for David P. Jacks, a Scotchman, 
famous as one of the most skilful acquirers of land in California. Mr. Ashley was also attorney 
for the city of Monterey and had successfully defended the city's claim to its pueblo lands before 
the U. S. Land Commission. 

His bill of $750 was due January 22, 1856, but owing to the city's failure to collect taxes, was 
not paid till 1859. 

As early as December, 1851. the Common Council had attempted to raise money on the pueblo 
or town lands. In 1853, a small portion of them was ordered sold at auction, but no record of the 
sale or of any money derived therefrom is to be found in their minutes. 

January 24, 1859, the Trustees found that, at ten per cent interest. Attorney Ashley's bill 
would be $991-50 by February 9. They accordingly ordered that the pueblo lands, or as much 
thereof as was necessary to pay the bill, should be sold by the sheriff at public auction on February 
9, between 9 a. m. and 5 p. m. 

All the pueblo lands were sold to Attorney Ashley and David Jacks, the only bidders, for 
$1,002.50. Mr. Ashley's bill was paid out of that sum. When other expenses incident to the sale 
were paid, there was four dollars with which to pav other bills.* 

A MECCA OF ARTISTS 

Meanwhile, oblivious of auctions and land suits, poets and artists were coming to Monterey. In 
181'9, Bayard Taylor journeyed tliither. 

"I took my meals," he says, "at the Fonda de la Union, just across the street. It was an old, 
•From Town Council Minute Book. 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 69 

smoky place, not uncomfortably clean, with a billiard room and two small rooms adjoining where 
the owner, a sallow Mexican, with his Indian cook and muchacho entertained his customers. 

"The place was frequented by a number of the members and clerks of the Convention, by all 
rambling Americans or Californians who happened to be in Monterey and occasionally a seaman or 
two from the ships in the harbor. 

"The charges were usually one dollar a meal, for which we were furnished with an olla of 
boiled beef, cucumbers and corn, an asado of beef and red peppers, a guisado of beef and pota- 
toes and two or three cups of execrable coffee. At the time of my arrival, it was the only restaurant 
in the place and reaped such a harvest of pesos that others were not long in starting up. 

"Flocks of ravens croak from the tiled roofs and cluster on the long adobe walls; magpies chat- 
ter in the clumps of gnarled oak on the hills and, as you pass through the forest, hares start up 
from their coverts under the bearded pines. The quantitj' of blackbirds about the place is aston- 
ishing. In the mornings, they wheel in squadrons about every house top and fill the air with their 
twitter. 

"There is no continuous roar of the plunging waves as on the Atlantic seaboard; the slow, 
regular swells, quiet pulsations of the great Pacific's heart, roll inward in unbroken lines and fall 
with single grand crashes with intervals of dead silence between. They may be heard through the 
day, if one listens, like the solemn undertone to all the shallow noises of the town; but at mid- 
night, when all else is still, those successive shocks fall upon the ear with a sensation of inexpres- 
sible solemnity. 

"All the air, from the pine forests to the sea. is filled with a light tremor and the intermitting 
beats of sound are strong enough to jar a delicate ear. Their constant repetition at last produces 
a feeling something like terror. A spirit worn and weakened by some scathing sorrow could scarcely 
bear the reverberations." 

"Last Sunday I went to church. Near the door hung opposite pictures of heaven and 
hell, the former a sort of pyramid inhabited by straight, white figures, with an aspect of sol- 
emn distress, the latter enclosed in the extended jaws of a dragon swarming with devils, who 
tormented their victims with spears and pitchforks. 

"The church music was furnished by a diminutive parlor organ and consisted of a choice list 



70 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

of polkas, waltzes and fandanfro airs. Padre Ramirez preached an excellent sermon, recommend- 
ing his Catholic flock to follow the example of the Protestants, who, he said, were more truly pious 
than they and did much more for the welfare of their church. 

"I noticed that, during the sermon, several of the Californians disappeared through a small 
door at the end of the gallery. Following them, out of curiosity, I found them all seated on the 
belfry and along the coping of the front, composedly smoking their cigars." 

RUINS OF SAN CARLOS 

What of that other church, five miles away in Carnielo Valley? Bartlett visited it while Bay- 
ard Taylor was in Monterey and left a vivid picture of the erstwhile queen of missions. 

"The mission establishment, which consists of a church and the usual accompaniment of a large 
enclosure with ranges of small buildings, stands ui>on a little elevation between the hills and the 
sea, from which it is distant only a few hundred yards. The church, built of stone, has two 
towers and six bells ; its walls are very thick, witli an arched roof, and supported by heavy but- 
tresses. The towers, as usual, differ. The adobe buildings near were all in a state of ruin and 
tenantless; not a human being was to be seen, wliile the rank grass and weeds which monopolized tlie 
ground showed that even curiosity did not often tempt visitors to its deserted precincts. The cor- 
nice of one corner had fallen and weeds has already taken root among its opening crevices. The 
remains of an orchard and vineyard are still near, in a decaying state." 

Small wonder that the old church had few visitors. Gambling dens and houses of ill fame, 
driven by law from Monterey, found hiding places amid the windings of the road to Carmel. 

Here Mexicans and Indians and Gringos gathered to gamble and revel — and murder, till folk 
said Satan haunted that highway and were loath to travel it b}' night. 

They tell a story of one young man who set out, late at night, to drive a nail in the wall of 
Mission San Carlos. He reached the church safely and drove the nail into the wall. When he 
turned to hasten back to his friends, something held him back. "Madre de Dios, 'tis Satan." 

Next morning they found his dead body standing beside the church. One corner of his scrape 
was fastened to the wall by the very nail he had driven and that had kept him from falling. 

"And truly." said the mothers, warning their sons. " 'twas Satan that did it, for the poor man 
died without confessing, and who but Satan can have his soul now.^" 




INTERIOR OF RUINED MISSION SAN CARLOS 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 71 

Even by day, one heard sounds of babies crying and hens with hoofs appeared, followed by 
broods of chicks with liorns or tail. 

But sometimes honest men had to pass that way and each one left a rude cross on a tree by the 
road, till El Camino Real became a veritable Avenue of Crosses. 

Yet, "God was mindful of His own," though Satan walked boldly up and down the King's 
Highway. Two brothers who found amusement in shooting the images off the altars of the mission, 
stricken by His wrath, went raving mad in the midst of their unholy target practice and. turning 
their guns on each other, died unconfessed. 

Once in a while, a few Indians would creep down from the hills to hold a sort of mass in the 
sacristy of the mission. On San Carlos Day they always came. No one disturbed them; only a 
few cared enough to even know they came. 

SLEEPY HOLLOW OF THE PACIFIC 

Indeed, during the first ten years of the town's existence, the Montere^ans seem to have been 
indifferent to everything, even their own wellbeing. 

In I860, the Trustees passed an ordinance making all people allowing hogs to run in the 
streets liable to a fifty-dollar fine. The law was sorely needed but poorly enforced. The Board met 
only once a year. 

January 23, I86l^, the Trustees began their fight to jirove that the sale of the pueblo lands to 
David Jacks and D. R. Ashley had been illegal. In 1 8()fj. Mr. Jacks had a bill passed in the Leg- 
islature legalizing the sale. Then the matter was dropped. 

In 1869, at the solicitation of Mr. Jacks and a few others, the Legislature granted to the city 
of Monterey perpetual title to her entire water front, exempt from all judgments against the city, 
to be controlled by the Trustees. 

They immediately leased a large portion of it to Mr. Jacks for one dollar per year, on condition 
that he build a new wharf. 

That same year, an attempt was made to reincorporate. It failed. For nine years there were 
no meetings of the Board of Trustees and no recorded elections. Monterey was civically dead, yet 
life there was by no means dull. 

Every Sunday afternoon there were bear and bull fights at the Pacific Hotel on Alvarado 



T^ AMERICAN MONTEREY 

Street. Every night there was a fandango at some house. Almost every day some one was giving 
a picnic. Hunting parties afforded amusement to some and gambling to others; while an occasional 
murder added spice to the whole. 

There was no longer need for the gamblers to hide on El Camino Real ; they plied their trade 
freely and openly in IMonterey. 

Sometimes a man was arrested for a murder committed in a drunken quarrel and, especially if 
he were a half-breed Indian and the victim a Gringo, he was hanged with little ceremonv to the 
portico of Colton Hall. 

The public school met in the old quartel in those days. Once it happened that a man was 
to be hanged at recess. All the children scampered over to Colton Hall to see the fun. Not till 
the criminal was safely dangling did the principal call them back to their studies, though the 
recess period was long past. 

At this epoch, the majority of the Montereyans were Mexicans. They hated the church be- 
cause it attempted to prevent at least a part of their licentiousness. They hated the priests because 
they were Spaniards. One evening, they burnt the priest in effigy. Knowing this was a prelude to 
some trouble, he fled on horseback. 

Young Vallejo led a band of caballeros to the rectory. Finding their prey had escaped, they 
spurred their horses in pursuit and even fired several shots. Only the darkness, which spoiled their 
aim, saved the priest's life. 

So sleepy had the old capital become, that when an election was held, November 6, 1872, for 
the purpose of changing the county seat, she offered no opposition. It was moved to Salinas, where 
it still remains. 

In 1873, Monterey again tried to reincorporate. She failed and no recorded Trustees' meeting 
was held until 1877. 

In April, 1874, David .Tacks and a few other Monterey business men commenced a narrow- 
gauge railroad from Monterey to Salinas. It was completed in October. Only one train a day was 
run, yet it seemed to rouse the sleeping city from her dreams. 

October 16, 1877, the Board of Trustees met and reopened the pueblo lands case. They agreed 
with Robert S. Forbes that if he would prosecute a suit against Mr. Jacks and bear all the ex- 
pense, he should have one-half of all lands recovered. 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 7?, 

In November, 18C)1, a patent was issued by the United States to the city of Monterey, fixing 
the boundaries of the lands. 

David Jacks appealed the case to tlie Superior Court and won. The city appealed it to the 
Supreme Court. Mr. Jacks won. That was the end. 

Mexican land grants had been made with a vagueness which rendered them valueless. Such 
indefinite boundaries as oak trees and wells sufficed before the days of surveyors. But of what 
use were they when the oak tree had been cut down and the well filled up.' So the shrewd Scotch- 
man kept many, many acres besides the original pueblo lands because no one could prove title to 
them. 

ARTISTS AGAIN 

In 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson came to California that he might earn money enough to marry 
Fanny Osborne. Fate seemed to be against the young man when ,Iules Simoneau, the restaurateur 
famous as the friend of struggling artists, found him by the roadside half unconscious from hunger. 
Mr. Simoneau took him home, nursed him back to life and fed him more than once when his purse 
was as empty as his stomach. 

Stevenson never forgot his friend and has made his (Simoneau 's) name immortal by his praises. 

In spite of these bitter experiences, Stevenson's letters to his friend, W. Henly, are full of tlie 
love of Monterey. "If you could only be suddenly dropped at the station," he writes, "you would 
then comfortably enter Walter's wagon (the sun has just gone down, the moon beginning to throw 
shadows, j'ou hear the surf rolling and smell the sea, the pines). That shall deposit yon at San- 
chez' saloon, where we take a drink. You are introduced to Bronson, the local editor ('I have no 
brain music, you see,' he says, 'I'm a meclianic,' but he is a nice fellow). 

"Meanwhile I go to the P. O. for my mail ; thence we walk up Alvarado Street together, you 
now floundering in the sand, now merrily stumping on the wooden sidewalks. I call at Hadsell's 
for my paper; at length, behold us installed in Simoneau's little whitewashed back room, round a 
dirty tablecloth, with Francois, the barber, perhaps an Italian fisherman, perhaps Augustin Dutra 
and Simoneau himself. Simoneau, Francois and myself are the three sure cards, the others mere 
waifs. 

"Then home to my great, airy rooms with five windows opening on a balconj' ; I sleep on the 



74 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

floor in my cainj) blankets; you instal yourself abed. In the morning, coffee with tlie little doctor 
and his little wife. We liire a wagon and make a day of it." 

Sixteen years later, looking back on those days, Stevenson wrote: 

"The ancient capital of California faces across the bay, while the Pacific Ocean, though hid- 
den by low hills and forest, bombards her left flank and rear with never-dying surf. In front of 
the town, the long line of sea beach trends north and northwest and then westward to enclose the 
bay. The waves which lap so quietly about the jetties of Monterey grow louder and larger in the 
distance; you can see the breakers leaping high and white by day; at night, the outline of the shore 
is traced in transparent silver by the moonlight and the flying foam; and from all around, even in 
quiet weather, the low, distant, thrilling roar of the Pacific Ocean hangs over the adjacent country 
like smoke over a battle. 

"These long beaches are enticing to an idle man. It would be hard to find a walk more soli- 
tary and at the same time more exciting to the mind. Crowds of ducks and sea gulls hover over 
the sea. Sandpipers trot in and out by troops after the retiring waves, trilling together in a chorus 
of infinitesimal song. Strange sea tangles, new to the European eye, the bones of whales and some- 
times a whole whale's carcass, white with carrion gulls and poisoning the air, lie scattered here 
and there along the sands. 

"The waves come in slowly, vast and green, and curve their translucent necks and burst with a 
surprising uproar, tliat runs, waxing and waning, up and down the long keyboard of the coast. The 
foam of these great ruins mounts in an instant to the ridge of the sand glacis, swiftly fleets back 
again and is met and buried by the next breaker. On no other coast that I know, shall you enjoy 
in calm, sunny weather such a spectacle of ocean's greatness, such beauty of changing color or such 
degrees of thunder in the sound. 

"The town, when I was there, was a place of two or three streets, economically paved with sea 
sand and two or three lanes which were water courses in the rainy season and were, at all times, 
rent up by fissures four or five feet deep. There were no street lights. Short sections of wooden 
sidewalk only added to the dangers of the night, for they were often high above the level of the 
roadwaj', and no one could tell where they would be likely to begin or end. The houses were, for 
the most part, built of adobe, many of them old for so new a century, some of very elegant propor- 
tions, with low, spacious, siiapely rooms, and walls so thick that the heat of summer never dried 




ALV AKADO STREET— IN STUUDAKD s I IML 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 75 

them to the heart. At the approach of the rainy .season, a deathlike chill and a graveyard smell 
began to hang about the lower floors. 

"There was no activity except in and around the saloons, where people sat almost all day long 
playing cards. The smallest excursion was made on horseback. You would scarcely ever see the 
main street without two or three horses tied to posts, and making a fine figure with their Mexican 
housings. In Monterey you saw true vaquero riding, men always at the hand gallop up hill and 
down dale, and around the sharpest corner, urging their horses with cries and gesticulations and 
the cruel rotary spurs ; checking them dead with a touch or wheeling tliem right about face within a 
square yard. 

"From the hilltop above Monterey, the scene is often noble, though it is always sad. The 
upper air is still bright with sunlight; a glow still rests u|ion the Gabilans peak; but the fogs are 
in possession of tlie lower levels; tliey crawl in scarfs along the sand hills; they float, a little 
higher, in clouds of gigantic size and of a weird configuration; to the south where they have struck 
the seaward shoulder of the mountains of Santa Lucia, they double back and spire up skyward like 
smoke. Wliere their shadow touches, color dies out of the world. The air grows chill and deadly 
as they advance. 

"Inshore a tract of sand hills borders on the beach. Here and there a lagoon, more or less 
brackish, attracts the birds and hunters. A rough, sjiotty undergrowth partially hides the sand. 
The crouching, hardy live-oaks flourish singly or in tliickcts, the kind of wood for murderers to 
crawl among, and here and there the skirts of the forest extend downward from the hills with a 
floor of turf and long aisles of pine trees hung with Spaniard's Beard. 

"These pitch pines of Monterey are, with the single exception of the Monterey cypresses, the 
most fantastic of forest trees. No words can give an idea of the contortion of their growth; they 
might figure without change in a circle of the nether hell as Dante pictured it. 

"The one common note of all this country is the haunting presence of the ocean." 

It was about this time that the mysterious Gentleman Bandit was puzzling the whole country. 
A refined, likable Englisliman mixed in the best society of .Monterev. Tlie only things that ever 
interfered with his social engagements were frequent visits to his ranch up in the hills back of 
Monterev. 



l(i AMERICAN MONTEREY 

Jim MclMahon, the County Treasurer, collected $50,000 in Watsonville one day and set out 
for Salinas that night. 

He was waylaid and captured by a band of robbers whose tactics had become famous. They 
never committed murder and robbed only messengers carrying large sums of money. 

McMahon was lead before the leader in a forest retreat on the Englishman's ranch. "Why, 
hello, Tom !" said he to the Englishman, by whom he was confronted. 

"Hello, Jim ! Sit down and have a smoke." Before the campfire, the two smoked and chatted 
of politics. Jim thought he was going to get off easy. Midnight came. Tom spoke: "Sorry, Jim, 
I always like to accommodate friends, but this is a matter of business. If I do not keep faith with 
my men here, they will not keep faith with me. You must give us that $50,000." 

"I did not bring it with me." Search proved the truth of his assertion. 

"Where is it.''" 

"I gave it to a friend who was leaving for Monterey tonight. He has it with him." 

"Well, d him, I'll have his frock coat, anyway," snarled one of the vaqueros. He got it. 

A few days later, while off on a big spree, he wore the coat to Santa Cruz. He was arrested 
and, under pressure, fully confessed the workings of the gang. As a result, they were all captured 
and convicted. 

AN ABANDONED MISSION 

During tlie seventies, there was not even an occasional bandit to enliven the desolation of Car- 
melo. !Most of tlie land was owned by people who liad their homes elsewhere. 

The few who lived there farmed a little, raised cattle and had their annual rodeo, much in the 
old Mexican way, though many of the rancheros were Gringos. 

It was a peaceful, simple sort of life. About the hardest task they had was to drive in ox carts 
to Watsonville for a load of beans. They considered beans a necessity, but found it easier to drive 
to Watsonville for them than to raise a crop in Carmel Valley. 

In an angle of the coast, a Cliinese fishing hamlet, like a bit of the Orient picked up and 
brought thither on a magic carpet, found slielter from the winds. 

Along El Rio Carmelo the last remnants of Carmel's hundreds of neophytes still built their 
tule huts, worked during the week for the rancheros and drank the Gringo's fire-water on Sunday; 




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AMERICAN MONTEREY 11 

or made a still more wretched existence by selling the products of their tinj', half-cultivated garden 
plots. 

Once a year they came and celebrated the Feast of San Carlos in the sacristy of the old mis- 
sion, the only part of it that was not full of weeds. 

With the help of the Portuguese custodian of tlie mission, Mr. Christiano Machado, they put a 
new roof over the sacristy and kept it in partial repair. 

Sometimes, too, when they were sick, thej' stole secretly into the chapel and held a sort of 
rosary over a certain spot back of tlie altar rail. They said the Padres had taught them to do 
this, for beneath that spot lay the body of Padre Junipero Serra. 

The growth of other mission towns throughout the State aroused Father Cassanova, a Swiss 
priest, who had come to Monterey in 1868, to a realization of the possibilities of Carmel. He 
ordered Mr. Machado to clean up the mission. 

EXHUMING THE BODY OF PADRE SERRA 

So much sand had drifted into the chapel that the custodian and his daughter had to drag it 
out on sleds; the}' had no wheelbarrows. The third day, Mr. Machado came upon the stones mark- 
ing the graves of the four Padres buried in San Carlos. 

Father Cassanova set July 3, 1882, as the day on which the graves should be opened with all 
appropriate ceremony. At the appointed time, in addition to the prominent men who were there by 
special invitation, quite a crowd came, eager to see if Padre Serra was really buried there. 

While Father Cassanova read the records describing the burial place of the Padres, Mr. Ma- 
chado opened the graves. Each body was identified ; some of the garments of each Padre were taken 
to be preserved as holy relics. The tombs were then closed and sealed and a marble slab placed 
over each mound. A tablet was hung on the wall, stating the fact of the burial. 

Father Cassanova and a few others set to work to raise money for a new roof. In 1887, the 
present steep, shingle roof was put on. It spoiled the graceful lines of the church, but saved it 
from crumbling entirely away. 

In preparing for the government a report on the "(onditinn of the Mission Indians," Helen 
Hunt Jackson \ isitcd Carmel and became deeply interested in the Carmel Indians. 

She wrote: 



78 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

"The most picturesque of the mission Indians' hiding places was that on the Carniel River, a 
few miles from the San Carlos Mission. Except by help of a guide, it cannot be found. A faint 
trail turning off from the road in the river bottom leads down to the river's edge. You follow it 
into the river and across. A few rods up from the river bank, a stealthy, narrow footpath appeared 
through willow copses, sunk in meadow grasses, across shingly bits of alder-walled beach it creeps 
till it comes out in a lovely spot, half basin, half rocky knoll, where, tucked away in nooks and 
hollows, are the Indian houses, eight or ten, some of adobe, some of tule reeds." 

In 1885, Charles Warren Stoddard came to Monterey by boat and laughed over the experience 
long afterwards: 

"Almost before we had got our reckoning, we drifted up under a dark pier, on which ghostly 
figures seemed to be floating to and fro, bidding us all hail. We threaded one or two wide, weedy, 
silent streets ; not a soul was visible, though it was but nine in the evening, which was not to be 
wondered at, since the town is divided against itself; the one-half slept, the other still sat upon 
the ])ier, making a night of it. 

"I saw her in her decay, the once flourishing capital. The old convent was windowless and 
its halls half filled with hay ; the barracks and the calaboose, inglorious ruins ; the block house and 
tlie fort, mere shadows of their former selves. As for Colton Hall, it is a modern looking structure 
that scarcely harmonizes with the jjicturesque adobes that surround it. 

"She was a dear, old, stupid town in my day. She boasted hut a half dozen thinly populated 
streets. One might pass through these streets almost any day, at almost any hour of the day, 
footing it all the way from the dismantled fort on the seaside to the ancient cemetery, grown to 
seed, at the other extremity of the settlement, and not meet a half score of people. 

"Geese fed in the gutters and hissed as I passed by; cows grazing by the wayside eyed me 
in grave surprise; overhead, the snow-white gulls wheeled and cried peevishly; and on the heights 
that shelter the ex-capital, the pine trees moaned and moaned and after caught the sea-fog among 
their thin branches when the little town was basking in the sunshine and dreaming its endless 
dream." 

Long afterwards he wrote: "The town has fallen into the hands of Crcpsus and lost its identity. 
It is hopelessly modernized. 

"Cypress Point was solemn enough of yore. The giant trees were hung with funeral mosses; 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 79 

they had huge elbows and shoulders and long, thin arms, with skeleton fingers at the end of tliem, 
that bore knots that looked like heads and faces such as Uore portrayed them in his fantastic 
illustrations. They were like giants transformed; they are still, no doubt, for the tide of fashion 
is not likely to prevail against them. 

"They stand upon the verge of the sea where they have stood for ages defying the elements. 
The shadows that gather under their locked branches are like caverns and dungeons and lairs. The 
fox steals stealthily away as you grope among the roots that writhe out of tlie earth and strike into 
it again, like pythons in a rage. The coyote sits in the edge of the dusk and cries with a half- 
human cry. And here are corpse-like trees that have been naked for ages ; every angle of their 
lean, gray boughs seems to imply something. Who will interpret these hieroglyphics ? 

"Blood-red sunsets flood this haunted wood; there is a sound as of a deep-drawn sigh passing 
through it at intervals. The moonlight fills it with mystery; and along its rocky front, where the 
sea flowers blossom and the sea-grass waves its glossy locks, the soul of the poet and of the artist 
meet and mingle between shadowless sea and cloudless sky, in the unsearchable mystery of that 
cypress solitude." 

"When I think on tliat beach at Monterey, the silent streets, the walled, unweeded gardens, a 
wistful Saturday afternoon feeling comes over me. I see the wlieeling gulls, the gray sand, the 
brown, bleak meadows, the empty streets, the shops, tenantless sometimes for tlie tenant is at dinner 
or at dominoes, the other shops that are tenantless forever and the keys are rusted awa3^" 

So had Monterey's awakening been only for a moment, not long enough for her to raise up 
from the Sleepy Hollow of memory. 

The poet made Monterey his home from the time of his first visit till his death, only going 
away when business necessitated it. He had been reared a Presbyterian, but, at the age of twelve, 
became a Catholic. April 26, 1909, his funeral was held at San Carlos chapel, Monterey, and High 
Mass said for his soul. 

MODERNIZING MONTEREY 

Six years after the poet first came to Monterey, Mrs. I.eland Stanford became interested in the 
life and works of Padre Junipero Serra. She had a beautiful granite statue of the Father erected 
near the spot where he first said mass. 

The monument was scarcely in place when the corrupt City Board of School Trustees began 



80 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

plans to tear down Colton Hall and use the stone and site for a new school house. The wall 
around it and the jail had been demolished before Monterey woke up to save its historic building. 

Just in the nick of time, a few patriotic citizens, prominent among them Mr. Harry A. Greene, 
Mr. Sargent, Sr., and Colonel Lambert, called a mass meeting, annulled the board's action and 
raised money enough for another school site. 

The city could not afford to repair the hall. Joseph Knowland, present Congressman, had a 
bill passed in the Legislature providing that the building be leased by the State and be by it kept 
in repair. It is now rented by the city and used as a city hall. 

The old custom house, begun in 1814, was restored and kept in repair by a similar provision 
of the Legislature. 

The purchase of the narrow-gauge railroad by the Southern Pacific and consequent improve- 
ment in the service had been gradually arousing Monterey to a sense of her possible future as a 
port of the Santa Clara, San Joaquin and Pajaro Valleys. 

In 1892, active work was begun by Mr. H. A. Greene and a few others to secure a railroad 
from Monterey to Fresno. They determined to make this road independent of the Southern Pacific. 

The ]\Ionterey and Fresno Railroad, after all its staring headlines and the hard work of a 
few earnest men to get right of way and such things, has paid its debts but nothing more. 

Several other attempts have since been made to get a cross-country railroad. Lack of funds 
has frustrated them all. 

About 1897. Mr. Juan ^lalarin installed a street car line, connecting Monterey with Pacific 
Grove. It was built for horse-cars and gave quite efficient service. 

In 1903, it was changed to an electric road, the tracks extended to Del Monte and a cross- 
town line put in, going direct to the Presidio. 

At Carmel, no bustle of progress disturbed the ceaseless song of the sea. A Western Brynhild, 
wrapped in a magic slumber, she waited the coming of an immortal hero to waken her. Not 
Sigurd, but the Soul of Art, has broken her enchanted sleep.* 

In Monterey all attempts at municipal awakening were frustrated by the unprogressive Mexi- 
can vote. The Spanish-American War enabled Americans, for the first time in the history of Mon- 
terey, to effectually overcome the Mexican vote. 

•Carmel lands were opened to the public, in November, 1902, when the Carmel Development Co. was organized. 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 81 

At that time, the Mexicans and Spaniards of California, and especially the Spanish priests, 
had a very strong feeling against the United States. The Americans in Monterey, realizing that 
a hostile boat could easily destroy the town, organized a marine corps and drilled under an ex-navy 
officer, Lieutenant Lasher. They petitioned the government for a boat on which to drill. The re- 
quest was granted, but the boat arrived too late for use and sunk before it reached San Fran- 
cisco, whither it was later sent by the government. 

The Mexicans began to hold secret meetings and plot a general massacre of all American 
citizens. 

Father ISIestres, the successor of Father Cassanova, was a Spanish priest but an American 
citizen. He had been doing all he could to remove the Mexican sentiment by preaching, but had 
failed. 

Mr. H. A. Greene and others decided to put up an American flag on the harbor. They went 
into the woods, cut a tall, straight pine for a flagpole and arranged to have elaborate ceremonies 
over its erection and the raising of the Stars and Stripes. 

Father Mestres was the orator of tlie day. He spoke earnestlj', urging upon the people their 
duty to the flag and their oath as American citizens and reminding them of the misrule of Cali- 
fornia by Spain and Mexico. Finally, in spite of hisses and threats from the ^Mexicans, he repeated 
the whole oration in Spanish. 

Plots to murder him followed thick and fast, but his quiet courage cowed the conspirators. 

He bought small American flags and nailed one to each pew in the chapel. The people objected, 
but dared not disobey the Fatlier, who bade them leave the flags where he had put them. 

To reach the hearts of the young folks, Rev. Mestres organized a special ceremonial, "Bless- 
ing the Flag." After High ^L^ss, fifteen girls, dressed in white with red and blue ribbons, brought 
in a huge American flag and placed it before the altar, where it was blessed with all ceremony. 

Just as they were about to end the festival by raising it on the pole at the convent across the 
street, a telegram came: "^Lanila has fallen. The Spanish fleet is sunk in Santiago Bay." 

Amid storms of cheers, the flag was raised to its place. Enthusiasm ran wild. The Spanish 
s])irit was crushed in Monterey, never to rise. 

After the war, the Mayor appealed to the United States to establish a military reservation at 
Monterey. The request was granted. 



82 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

In 1896, Monlcrey began a series of brilliant public celebrations by her Semi-Centennial of 
the American occujjation. 

Business firms came there, foreign visitors were entertained by her citizens, till now she is 
known far and wide, a city of today. 

If, some time, you long to see the Monterey of older days, walk down Alvarado Street 
towards the custom house in the early evening. There the dark-eyed senoritas still wander, the 
bright flowers in their hair half hid by silken lace mantillas. 

"There is one, a perfect little beauty, who wears her hair in an elaborate style with beautiful 
curls at one side; a dress witli Dutch neck and a lace scarf, a dainty dress that is short enough to 
show her slim ankles and tiny slippers. She is pretty and knows it, but is so innocent that she 
never guesses that you just have to stop and look at her again. She still lives in the Old Monterey." 

Alvarado Street ends at the custom house, now used as headquarters for the Native Sons' and 
Native Daughters' associations (social organizations of native-born Californians). As you pause on 
its veranda and look at the myriad tiny boats on the bay, it is easy to ]iicture some olive-skinned 
smuggler stealing silently past the wharves to a sheltered nook where he may hide his iilunder till 
he can safely take it away to sell. 

When you turn back along Alvarado Street, the illusion vanishes. On the right, the old Pacific 
Hotel stands. No sounds of mirth or music issue from it; its walls are warped and weather-worn 
and most of its windows are dirty and barren. Yet once it was one of the liveliest hotels on the 
Coast. Only an artist's studio and the Salvation Army are there now. 

"Heavens, what was that shriek?" Nothing but the 7:.50 train from San Francisco rushing 
and screaming along just below the custom house. 

Puzzled by these contrasts, you wander on down Alvarado Street, past the Chamber of 
Commerce and a whole row of brightly illuminated stores. The noise of an electric street car 
going to Del Monte half drowns the music of a blind man who sits, day after day. playing his 
accordion in front of an adobe cigar store. You cross a car track, pass the Hotel Monterey, the 
First National Bank and another block of stores, then come to the home of Seiiorita Bonifacio. 

It sits in a yard that is a mass of flowers. Over the gateway the arch of the famous Sherman 
Rose still blooms in unfading beauty. For years the senorita has lived there alone. Seldom does 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 83 

anytliing bre;vk the regular program of her daily life. She keeps her rooms just as carefully and 
prepares her solitary meals just as daintily as would a bride of a month. "There isn't a speck of 
dust anywhere, not even on her kitchen water-tank." 

In vain her friends urge her not to live so comjiletely alone ; she fears nothing. Every week 
she goes to evening mass and returns alone to the silent, unlighted house. She, too, is still in the 
Old Monterey. 

Leaving the hotel next morning, you pass by more stores and the postoffice, then turn to the 
left as the car does and come upon the "First Lumber House in California." 

Tommy Allan, the one-armed constable of Monterey, opens the door almost before you have 
knocked. His coat is off; from his right hip pocket a revolver gleams threateningly; from his left, 
a pair of handcuffs jangles sinisterly. He has just returned from an unsuccessful hunt for n 
criminal. 

Criminals and weapons are forgotten while, with characteristic Scotch-Irish hospitality, this 
son of Mrs. Botchson tells the story of his home. 

His daughter, Mrs. Dana, a fair-cheeked, dark-eyed woman, who seems to be more than half 
Spanish, pauses in her breadmaking to give a dish of jiudding to the baby or add an occasional 
word to her father's narrative. 

Finally their tale is finished. Only the soft pitter-patter of mice running races around the 
kitchen and the faint laughter of children, blown in through the open door, break the silence. 
The cheery constable is thinking of other days. 

A block from Mr. Allan's home stands a large, green house with unusually well-kejit grounds. 
It is the Munras home, built in 1824, covered with wood now, so as to be more like its neighbors. 
It is the home of Thomas Field, president of the Bank of Monterey. 

Inside, there are quaint old Spanish dresses and mantillas, the famous spoons made from 
spangles, a beautifully carved Spanish saddle, and an old chair cut out and put together by the 
Indians from the mission. It was used by Mrs. Field's great-grandfather in his surgeon's office in 
1804. 

Called by the deep-voiced bell, you wander over to the erstwhile Royal Chapel, now a mere 
parish church. Up the whalebone walk and across the whalebone Star of Hope, through the dim 



84 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

vestibule you pass into the chapel itself. The holy pictures between the stained-glass windows arc 
those used by Padre Serra. His, too, are the silver candlesticks. A wooden crucifix and Christ 
near the entrance were carved for him by the Indians. 

The relics of Junipero Serra are kept in a little room beyond the sacristy. Thither you go to 
marvel at the exquisite embroidery on the time-worn vestments, especially one. A Governor's wife 
M-ore it before the Queen. Finding no use for so handsome a gown in the pioneer town, she trans- 
formed it into a cope. 

Why do they not have a better ))lace to keep things ? Ask the Bishop. A few years ago, the 
Junipero Society was formed. It jilanned to erect a beautiful marble shrine, fitted with glass cases 
for the relics, on the spot where Padre Serra said mass. Use of the land was offered gratis by the 
Town Council. Being part of the waterfront, it could neither be sold nor given away. The Bishop 
refused to dedicate the chapel on ground not belonging to the church, and the plan fell through. 

Back of the church is the last remnant of the Vizcayno oak tree. It liad died from neglect 
and graders were about to cover up the stump when Mr. Greene rescued it. Then he and Father 
Mestres had it put here for safekeeping. From t!ic branches, a chair was made and given to the 
Native Sons. 

Here and there you pass ruins of old adobes witli tlieir quaint tile roofs half fallen and the 
grass growing from the walls. 

A few blocks south of the church are two houses in perfect rejiair. One is the first Court of 
Records, formerly used as Genera] Halleck's headquarters. It was called House of the Little Man 
of the Four Winds by the Mexicans because there was a weather vane on it, in the form of a horse- 
man, the first in California. The corner adobe was Consul Larkin's home. 

Time has made little change in these houses. Behind them is the typical Spanish court-garden 
with its walks, shaded arbors and stone stove for broiling all sorts of meat, and back of these, the 
low adobe dwellings that once housed Indian servants. Even the tile-topped adobe fence is still 
untouched. 

You wander on, past the advertisement-plastered shack that was once the first theater in Cali- 
fornia, wiii'i-e, the gossips say, .Tenny Lind sang; only, of course, you do not believe them. You 
pause awhile before the erstwhile homes of Stoddard and Stevenson and come at last to modern 
looking Colton Hall. 




CAPTAIN BRALEY 

— One of Sloat s officers — 

BY THE VIZCAINO OAK STUMP 




OLD ADOBE HOUSE 



AMERICAN MONTEREY S5 

Next day you take the car for Pacific Grove and go hy llic Associated Oil r()iii|).iny's reser- 
voirs. Their pipe lines tap the Coaliiifra oil fields. 

Beyond them is the glaring sign of a fish caiuiery, ])creh('d on the edge of the Bay, whose ealin 
waters are dotted with tiny fishing boats. 

A few blocks more and you i)ass a picturesque Moorish house, standing far hack from the 
street. In its grounds a babbling brook, stone-bordcn-d paths and rustic benches arc shaded by 
every kind of tree that can be grown in Monterey. 

It is the home of the Monterey Tree Growing Club, parent of all such clubs in America. Their 
purpose is to distribute trees, seeds and information about them gratis to all )niblic grounds and 
schools. 

The oldest thing in Monterey is the Mexica?i Custom House; the newest thing is tli<> Hreak- 
water. 

"The great obstacles to shipi)ing in Monterey B.ay are the ground swells and undertow. 
The ground swells sometimes sweep into the Bay, causing surging to a degrei! dangerous to the 
larger vessels, while smaller vessels are seldom disturbed." 

Moreover, products from a large interior territory can be shi|)ped through Monterey at a sav- 
ing of twenty-five per cent on present facilities. The entire waterfront is owned by tlie municipality 
and cannot be sold or permanently leased. 

She has been trying since 1850 to get a breakwater. In 1911, Congress appro|)riated money 
for one. Surveys have been made and in a few years the breakwater will be a reality. 

Then, on the smoke of big steamers, the last shreds of the "mantle of old traditions" will be 
borne away. 

PACIFIC GROVE 

Monterey is well protected. On one side is Pacific Grove, the town of churches. 

It was founded June 15, 1875, by David Jacks and a delegation of Metiiodists. It was in- 
tended to serve as a combined health resort and camp meeting grounds. 

In 1883, the Pacific Improvement Company jiurchased Pacific (irove from Mr. Jacks. 

They immediatelv commenced improving it. A new water system was installed, a new hotel 
built and a real "town" started. 



86 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

Todaj' it has good grammar schools, a high school, churches of nearly every denomination, 
up-to-date stores and no saloons. 

Dozens of tiny cottages nestle among the sand hills and trees. In winter they are quiet, but 
during the summer season a more lively picture could scarce be found than these same cottages, full 
to overflowing with summer campers, religious and otherwise. 

DEL MONTE 

On the other side of Monterey stands famous Hotel Del Monte, one of the most modern and 
elegantly appointed hotels on the Pacific Coast, yet its history goes hack to the Mexican days. 

It was once part of Rancho Lagunita that, like so many others, fell into the hands of David Jacks. 
In 1880. this projjerty, together with the Rancho Pescadero. was sold to the Pacific Improvement 
Company for five dollars an acre. 

A hotel was put up at once, on the same architectural plans as the present building, but not, 
of cour.se, as large. It was burned to the ground on the night of May 31, 1887. 

In October of the same year, the new hotel was ready for use. The old rancho of 126 acres 
is now a private park. Where cattle once ran wild, flowers and trees from all countries now m.ake 
Del Monte Park one of the scenic wonders of California. 

After breakfast, on the first day of your stay at Del Monte, you join an automobile party to 
see the world-famous "Seventeen Mile Drive." 

In the auto is a lawyer, fresh from a land title case. While you are waiting for luncheon to 
be served at quaint, beautiful Pebble Beach Lodge, he tells the odd history of the picturesque 
drive. 

"On the seventh day of January, 1836, Fabian Berreto petitioned Governor Gutierrez for a 
grant of land called Pescadero, from Point Lobos to Point Cypress, a little less than a league. The 
grant was confirmed by the Assembly in 1840. 

"Berreto died the next year, leaving his widow, Maria, in possession of the rancho. After 
four years she remarried. With her husband she lived on the rancho till 1816. In order to get a 
town house, .she sold the whole 4.3P8 acres for $500, or a little less than twelve cents an acre. 

"Six years later, J. C. Gore paid $1,000 for the same estate. Gore did not live on the Pesca- 
dero Ranch. 

"In I860, Maria gave another deed to the same property to Mr. McDougall. a Scotchman, and 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 87 

agent for ]Mr. Jacks. The property was, of course, iiimiediatcly transferred to Mr. Jacks. He 
promptly took possession, paid the taxes and fenced the rancho. 

"Tired of life in California, eager to escape from the litigation caused by the double deed. 
Gore gave his attorney in New Jersey power to exchange the Rancho for property valued at 
$33,000. 

"Oratory in the land suit that had begun over the rancho became rather fiery. July 9, I860, 
Gore wrote to his attorney, giving a description of the trial : 

" 'One of the witnesses, a Scotchman, was kept on the stand for six days. On the last day 
but one, the cross-examination by my attorney became so severe that both the witness and Ashley 
threatened him with violence. I told them squarely that if there was to be any fighting, I meant 
to have a hand in it and my hand would be a bloody one. If I could have had any excuse, I would 
have dropped Ashley in his tracks.' 

"When Gore died in 1887, he willed the rancho and its troubles to his son. 

"David Jacks retained possession and paid tiie taxes until 1880. Then he sold it to the 
Pacific Improvement Company for five dollars an acre. 

"Litigation over the famous Rancho Pescadero came to an end when the last descendant of 
John Gore and complainant in the last case against David Jacks was killed in the big earthquake 
of 1906." 

By that time, lunch is served and the story ended. It is, however, only the beginning of 
your pleasures in the "Eden of the Pacific." especially if you come in the hunting season and stay 
long enough to journey out to the fascinating hills and hear some of the quaintly piquant tales 
and legends of the old Spanish and Mexican inhabitants. 

Still living half in a dreamland, you leave Del Monte's drives and hedges, its tame squirrels 
and exotic flowers, to visit Carmel, the "Florence of America." 

A CITY OF THE SOUL 

In days of old, the Padre, intent on his mission work, went once a month to say mass in the 
Royal Chapel at Monterey. 

Of Carmel's thousand neopliytes, only one remains. A bent old man comes once a year, on 
San Carlos Day, to worship in the mission. 



88 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

Some went back to tlieir savage kinsmen and so passed beyond the ken of the pale face. 
Many married into Mexican families. Most of them went home to the Great Spirit. 

In their stead, a new heathen nation dwells around the old mission; but the church gives no 
heed. The yellow man does not claim her attention as the red man did. Now, once a month, the 
Padre leaves his church in Monterey and comes to say mass at San Carlos del Carmelo. 

By the church, occupying the land of the mission orchard, where some of the pear trees planted 
by Padre Serra still bear fruit, is an old, humble dwelling formerly occupied by Christiano Machado. 
For years, the old man regaled tourists with stories of the mission. In 1911, an assistant priest 
spent a few months there. 

He very harshly rebuked Mr. Machado for telling such fanciful tales. Hurt and angry, the 
old custodian went away, leaving the eldest of his ten children in charge. Sometimes, his little 
grandson, a lad of about eight, tends the church. His grandfather's love of the mission has been 
inherited by the little boy and a note of reverence creeps into tlie childish voice whenever he repeats 
the storj' of the Padres who lie buried there. 

Only the foundation of the original adobe wall forming the quadrangle of the mission is now 
left. The few adobes standing are relics of the priests' dwellings; these, being neglected, are grad- 
ually washing away. 

Fifty-one Sundays out of the year, the worshipers are few. But on the fifty-second Sunday, 
the one immediately following November 4, the faithful, artists, tourists, and just "common folk," 
all flock to the mission. It is San Carlos Day. 

For a week before the festival, loving hands have been busy putting shining green pine boughs 
over the scarred walls, back of the altar, around the pictures of the saints and in the provokingly 
up-to-date stained-glass windows. 

Christiano Machado's are the fingers that bank the pines and tufted grasses, hide the neglected 
pillars with masses of red and pink geraniums against a background of dark pines and conceal the 
poorly painted altar rail by a screen of chrysanthemums, marigold, pansies and pine branches. His 
are the hands that place the myriad candles all ready to light and make San Carlos' own altar a 
bower of radiant beauty. 

High mass is celebrated at half past ten in the morning. Long before the auto speeds from 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 89 

Monterey bringing Father Mestres to the mission, the Mexicans and, if the day be fine, one old 
Indian, come on foot, on horseback and in wagons of all kinds. Their stiffly starched, bright- 
colored dresses make the old mission wake from its dusty slumber and live the old days over again. 
Often, in the midst of their quick chatter about the events of tlie past year, for many of tliem 
see each other only once a year, they pause to repeat the legends of Padre Serra. 

"But each year," they say, "the Padre rises 

From his grave the mass to say, 
In the midnight, 'mid the ruins. 

On the eve of Carlos' day. 

"Then the sad ranks, long years buried, 

From their lowly graves arise; 
And, as if doom's trump had sounded, 

Each assumes his mortal guise. 

"With their gaudy, painted banners, 

And their torches burning bright. 
In a long procession come they 

Through the darkness of the night; 
Singing hymns and swinging censors; 

Dead folks' ghosts, they onward pass. 
In the church now all are gathered, 

And not long have they to wait; 
From his grave the Padre rises, 

Midnight mass to celebrate. 

First he blesses all assembled, 
Soldiers, Indians, neophytes; 



90 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

Then he bows before the altars 
And begins the mystic rites. 

"When the Padre says the Sanctus, 

And the Host is raised on high, 
Then the bells up in the belfry, 

Swung by angels, make reply ; 
And the drums roll and the soldiers 

In the air a volley fire; 
While the Salutaris rises 

Grandly from the phantom choir. 

" 'Ite, missa est' is spoken 

At the dawning of the day — 
And Junipero, the Padre, 

Lying down, resumes his sleep. 

"And the lights upon the altars 

And the torches cease to burn ; 
And the vestment and the banners 

Into dust and ashes turn ; 

"And the ghostly congregation 

Cross themselves and one by one 
Into thin air swiftly vanish 

And the midnight mass is done." 

— R. E. White. 

Honk! Honk! Chug! It is the auto bringing Father Mestres. A crowd of worshipers fol- 
low him into the church, while the bell, swung by mortal hands, summons those who are farther 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 91 

away. Even the loud voice and empty laugh of the curious are hushed as they enter the bower of 
flowers that only a week ago was a dusty, uninviting ruin. 

High Mass is celebrated as of old; but the Indian choir is gone and a second auto brings 
trained choristers from Monterey. 

In simple, straightforward language, first in Spanish and later in English, Father Mestres 
tells the story of the founding of Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Carmelo de Monterey and the 
lesson of the need for chaste women and honorable men which was taught by San Carlos four hun- 
dred years ago. In a few words, he thanks the old man whose loving care has made possible the 
day's celebration. 

Then all the people form a long procession. In the center is carried the statue of San Carlos, 
and, while the choir sings the Hymn to San Carlos, they march slowly around the church. 

HYMN TO SAN CARLOS 
1. 
We come to thee, O happy saint, 

To claim thy care and love ; 
To beg thy guidance through this life 
To endless bliss above. 
Chorus: 

Oh, pray for us, San Carlos, 

For dangers hover near ; 
Oh, pray that God may give us strength 

To conquer every fear. 

2. 
While in the rosy dawn of youth, 

To God thy heart was given. 
And true through life thy spotless soul 
'Mid suffering soared to heaven. 

Chorus. 



92 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

s. 

Thy purity has won for thee 
A crown of fadeless light. 

Oh, may its radiance shine on us 
And cheer the gloom of night. 



Chorus. 



4. 
Oh, pray for us, O happ}' saint, 

While on the sea of life 
We struggle with the winds and waves, 

Oh, aid us in the strife. 



Chorus. 



5. 
And when we've triumphed over sin 

And death's dread hour is nigh, 
Oh, pray that God may angels send 
To hear our souls on high. 

Chorus. 

Upon re-entering the church, all true followers of San Carlos kneel on the altar steps, and, 
kissing the relic of the saint, receive his blessing. At two in the afternoon, the service of the Rosary 
is celebrated. 

That pretty ceremony over, the autos whisk choir and Father back to their duties in Monterey. 
The Mexicans give up the rest of the day to singing, drinking, dancing and playing; the faithful 
go home to pray; the tourist goes back to the real world of today with a sigh for the dream world 
of yesteryear. 

For another year the mission slumbers in solitude and the soul of art walks undisturbed among 
the pine groves of Carmelo. Tule huts of the Indians no longer find shelter from wind and rain 
beneath the pines. In their stead, picturesque bungalows of masters of pen, of brush, of chisel and 
of song nestle quietly there. 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 93 

"So many years ago," the Padres came to Carmel to create tiie center of a new empire of 
the soul and daring soldiers came to Monterey to huild there the center of a new empire of 
riches and renown. Once upon a time their dreams seemed on the point of becoming realities, then 
they fell asleep again. 

Now, from the slumber of decades, rises the living reality of their half- forgotten dreams. 
Lured by the loveliness of wave-washed shore and tree-veiled hills, by the lucid, mysterious depths 
of roaring water, to Carmel have come those who are building another, an artists' empire of the 
soul. 

As a secret shrine to the artist soul that was killed almost before it was born, a tall, shrewd, 
forceful Yankee lawyer is "attempting to let any man or woman who is producing sentiment in 
any way, work free from financial worry over a home in the wonderful climate so like that of Greece 
in its palmiest days." 

He says: "Any man who is producing seutini'iit (using the word in its best sense), either with 
tongue or with pen, by clay or by brush or by gut, can Iiave as much of my land to use for one 
dollar a year as he wants, as long as he will use it, in a climate that never gets cold and never gets 
hot and never prevents him from working at his best. If he makes any improvements, I am pre- 
pared to buy them from him at whatever they are worth at any time he sees fit to leave. I have 
no intention of giving any man the land, but if he is actually working, I will give him the use of 
the land while working. These words, 'actually working,' are not expressed idly and I know what 
real work is." 

The newspaper people are already taking the idea seriously. The hopes of its originators grow 
with the appreciation of those whose profession makes them analyze schemes in their infancy. 

One of the first to give special attention to the idea was Mr. Walter Anthony, one of .San 
Francisco's best dramatic critics. Carmel had produced the "Toad," a J)lay written by one of the 
Carmel poets, produced on the Carmel stage by Carmel's college professors, painters, dramatists, 
plumbers, grocerymen and story writers. 

During the same week, the children gave "Alice in Wonderland," and the man who played the 
part of King in it. an author whose annuities are written iri five figures, refused an off'er of .^1,000 
to "write up" the political conventions for a New York paper because he was already engaged. 



94 AMERICAN MONTEREY 

His engagement was nothing more than following out his intoxication with the idea by playing 
King. 

The following is Anthony's expression of the idea: 

"The Carmel idea is a splendid abstraction, bigger than any man or episode related to it. It 
has escaped from the hands of its creators like the genie from the fisherman's vase, and is spreading 
its influence over the West. 

"The idea is the encouragement of Western art, in a typically Western environment, the 
development in Carmel of a race of poets and artists not apart from the world, but of it, and 
ca))able of giving expression to its aspirations and needs, a modern Athens whither may be borne 
a later-day Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, as well as a host, perhaps, of lesser Phrynichus 
and actorial Crates. 

"The result will be more quickly attained by the procedure at present observed where the 
entire population of Carmel is involved in these annual expressions of dramatic art. As long as the 
butcher and the grocer and the plumber are in th performances, there is hope for them. It was the 
Grecian crowd that made the Grecian drama. Tiiink of the intelligence the gallery god of Aris- 
tophanes' day possessed to appreciate the philosophical satire of that ungodly wit." 

Even artists require food and raiment and shelter ; to supply these needs, a city of trades- 
people is growing up beside the art colony. 

So, surrounded by all the problems of life, yet with a place of escape from them, the artists 
live and love and long for the unattainable and hope and marry and bring forth a race of kings. 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF SERRA'S BIRTH 

The long-severed bond whicli united Carmel and Monterey in the old, old days is being 
welded together again. Sunday. November 23, 1.Q1.3, there was held at Carmel a pilgrimage, a 
religious ceremony and a barbecue celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Padre 
■lunipero Serra. 

When the throngs of worshipers left Carmel, they went to the Presidio of Monterey to partici- 
pate in civic ceremonies in honor of the great friar.* 

That celebration meant more than the reunion of Monterey and Carmel ; it added another link 
in the chain of a new friendship between .Spain and America. 

•Tn the preparations for both ceremonies the sister towns of Del Monte and Pacific Grove had pladly assisted. 



AMERICAN MONTEREY 95 

For weeks before the appointed time, Father Mestres had had constant correspondence with 
Father Torrens (the only living relative of Padre Serra), who was planning a similar ceremonial 
in Mallorca, Spain. 

That the State as well as the church might show its a])preciation of Junipero Serra's great 
work. Governor Johnson sent Mr. F'rank H. Powers as a special Serra commissioner to the Mallorca 
celebration. 

Cablegrams were exchanged, November 23, between Father Mestres and Father Torrens. King 
Alfonso's representative at Washington telegraphed greetings and congratulations from his sover- 
eign to the worshipers at Carmel. 

But, because of inclement weather, tlie Mallorca celebration had been held earlier. The Serra 
commissioner had come too late. 

Instead of icily polite official regrets such as might have been expected from a country with 
wliicii we were at war only sixteen years ago. Father Torrens got up a second celebration in order 
that the American envoy's mission might not be vain. 

F'ollowing the quaint Old World custom, he sent criers through the streets, announcing to the 
people that there would be special services in honor of their countryman, Junipero Serra. 

Happy over the unexpected holiday, dressed in their best, the crowds came, listened to their 
priests' speeches and applauded when Father Easterlink translated the English speech of the com- 
missioner. 

The King himself sent greetings to the little grouj) gather at Mallorca and they have all 
promised never again to neglect the memory of Padre Serra. 

Every year, say they, Spain and California, lands of his birth and death, will unite in honor- 
ing his name. 

After two hundred years. Fray Junipero Serra is seeing once more a union of the two countries 
he labored so faitlifully to join. 



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